Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
In what became a highly charged row, Time Magazine Reporter Michael Grunwald posted on twitter “I can’t wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange.” After a frantic and very pointed response Mr. Grunwald deleted the post and issued an apology which read “It was a dumb tweet. I’m sorry. I deserve the backlash. (Maybe not the anti-Semitic stuff but otherwise I asked for it.”
Time Magazine issued a statement distancing itself from the controversial tweet. “Michael Grunwald posted an offensive tweet from his personal Twitter account that is in no way representative of TIME’s views. He regrets having tweeted it, and he removed it from his feed.”
The fact that a news reporter of a major publication in the United States advocates the extra-judicial assassination of another person who publishes information to the public is certainly disturbing in itself. But, is it also equally as disturbing that it might be an insight into the mindset of some reporters of their mode of being defenders of the U.S. Government’s and the administration’s practices?
One has to question what the role of a news reporter is when they publicly state they cannot wait to defend an action that the President’s Administration has been widely criticized for engaging in for many years. Defending a presidency might be a role for a Whitehouse Spokesperson or a Defense Attorney but how objective can we believe a mass media reporter to be when he, on his own volition, advocates defending those responsible for a future demise of a dissident by tweets such as this? Is this an insight into a culture that might exist in some circles of the news media where defending illegal actions by the government is considered common practice? And one also has to question the direction news outlets might be fostering in the way they might be steering their reporters in how information is presented to the readers.
So what is to become of journalism if its role is simply to be a profession that launches attacks on those who criticize a government’s actions and then rushes to defend this government if it chooses to carry out illegal activities?
OT:
Glenn Greenwald’s partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours
David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act
The Guardian, Sunday 18 August 2013 14.21 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow
“The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.30am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.
The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last under an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.
Miranda was then released without charge, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing the NSA’s electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain’s GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.
While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian.
“This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process,” said Greenwald. “To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.
“But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively.”
A spokesperson for the Guardian said: “We were dismayed that the partner of a Guardian journalist who has been writing about the security services was detained for nearly nine hours while passing through Heathrow airport. We are urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities.”
A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: “At 08:05 on Sunday 18 August 2013 a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was not arrested. He was subsequently released at 17:00.”
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers. Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offense to refuse to cooperate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.
Last month, the UK government announced it would reduce the maximum period of detention to six hours, and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid concerns that it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-17/nsa-boundless-informant
** Elaine M. 1, August 18, 2013 at 2:23 pm
laserhaas,
We could add a few more to your list: Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez. I’m sure I’m forgetting some others. That said, there certainly aren’t that many real journalists around.
**
Yes I noticed you guys forgot a couple. 🙂
Like a great guy Greg Hunter/Reporter
Greg’s comments this weeks Jesse Jackson Jr are very fitting.
I hope you help spread Greg’s site.
http://usawatchdog.com/weekly-news-wrap-up-8-16-13/
& of course AJ’s Infowars team
“First they watch you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win……”
laserhaas,
We could add a few more to your list: Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez. I’m sure I’m forgetting some others. That said, there certainly aren’t that many real journalists around.
“An assault on our collective national existence is the time when we need resolve in our principles and Constitutional laws more than any other time.
It is then when we are most tested to keep true to our national identity and values, and be the good guys we are supposed to be, especially to our own people.”
Gary T.,
Exactly. The attack on 9/11 was an effort to change this country from its ostensible belief in our Constitution and to the rule of law, by provoking it through fear to abandon that which made us unique. Whichever theory has as to who or what was behind it that was the attacks purpose. It unfortunately succeeded far beyond its perpetrators purpose.
Mike:
The statist cry “This changes Everything” is so ignorant of history and of principle.
An assault on our collective national existence is the time when we need resolve in our principles and Constitutional laws more than any other time.
It is then when we are most tested to keep true to our national identity and values, and be the good guys we are supposed to be, especially to our own people.
When times are good, and there are no stressors, that is not the time when our resolve is tested, it is only under duress that we see how principled we actually are.
Mike S.,
9/11 did change everything. As you suggested it changed the importance of the Constitution and the rule of law. It changed the need for politicians to actually worry about lying and it changed the need for corporations to hide in the bushes while they were pulling the strings of the government.
First they came for the whistleblowers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a whistleblower.
Then they came for the NSA truth tellers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an NSA truth teller.
Then they came for the war crimes leakers
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a war crimes leaker
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Dredd’s accurate detailing of Project Mockingbird fails to give the full horror of this massive propaganda conspiracy that has shaped this nation for many decades. This wasn’t a failure on Dredd’s part, but the sheer magnitude of the effects of Mockingbird that would require tens of thousands of pages to document and to explore. Mr. Grunwalds real error is in exposing how most of those behind the scenes of our “news media” think and act. Many of course would lay blame on the American people for allowing this to happen, but the reality is that the American people have been exposed to decade upon decade of propaganda emanating from news sources they were taught to trust. This media propaganda has created the kind of mindset that believes the President has the right to order the specific murder of people in the name of combating terrorism.
What Mr. Assange did in exposing the truth of unconstitutional, illegal actions by our government agencies was an embarrassment to these agencies and to this Administration. That this so-called journalist would conflate embarrassing illegal government actions with terrorism is in itself a travesty of journalism. That he would be happy with the murder of this source of “embarrassment” bespeaks a person who doesn’t understand what our Constitution is about and has no business being an authority on anything other than his own stupidity and ignorance.
As I watched the horror of 9/11 unfold on my TV that day and the days following, I was infuriated with those “journalists” repeating over and again “This Changes Everything”. The concept at the time seemed ridiculous to me as if America was going to collectively act the role of “No more Mr. Nice guy” in an action movie. My prescience was limited though because I did not realize that “This changes everything” was a meme developed to justify throwing out our Constitution.
If one waits long enough the hacks drop their “journalist” facade and give us a glimpse of their true character. -Blouise.
Yep. True colors shining through…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/17/michael-grunwald-julian-assange_n_3773981.html
“In April, Grunwald wrote a piece for TIME criticizing libertarians and defending the government’s efforts to fight terrorism:
But while the “stand with Rand” worldview is quite consistent — against gun restrictions, traffic-light cameras, drone strikes, antidiscrimination laws, antipollution laws and other Big Brother intrusions into our private lives — it’s wrong. And most of us know it’s wrong, which is why we celebrate our first responders, our soldiers, our law enforcers. They’re from the government, and they’re here to help. We know our government is fallible, because it’s made up of people, but we still count on it to protect us from terrorists, from psychos with guns, from exploding factories. We also need it to protect us from floods and wildfires, from financial meltdowns and climate change. We can’t do that kind of thing ourselves.”
I guess Mr. Grunwald exposed that fact that non-partisan journalism is almost dead. It also speaks to the success that the corporate owned media’s program to scare us into believing that killing without cause is a good thing…if the government says so.
Professor Turley, Matt Taibbi and Chris Hedges
Our last chance at journalistic integrity and hope for “real” news…
Sad state of affairs; that Romney’s Bain Clear Channel gets 100 million listeners because he stole the monies to buy it.
And we have our few, who do not have enough time in the day to handle it all!
This is sick. He should be fired. I am sure Obama can find him an OFFICIAL government job and cut out the middleman.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Are we there yet….oh yeah…. Mr. Obama signed into law and expanded President Bush’s patriot act…. We’re close….
I just started a subscription to TIME. This is causing me to consider cancelling. How could I trust anything he writes, even if it was his personal twitter account. Seems to me it used to be that journalists kept their personal views and biases private and worked to be impartial.
Occurs to me as I write it is it as we say about racists, better we know who they are as they have become more vociferous over the years. Better we know this writer’s bias? Just doesn’t feel right to me.
If one waits long enough the hacks drop their “journalist” facade and give us a glimpse of their true character.
Word Press censor alert …
Perhaps he blew his cover:
(Mocking America).
Grunwald is a symptom of a mind-set.
Here’s Bill Moyers video piece: When We Kill Without Caring
http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-when-we-kill-without-caring/
… the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and President Obama’s prolific use of drones all share a “blind faith in technology, combined with a sense of infallible righteousness.”
Considering Mr. Grunwald’s stated bias in favor of assassination by drone and a very clear pro-government bias no matter what, I would suggest that in the words of many a right wing pundit he many not be a journalist or even a reporter. He should be fired. Deleting a tweet doesn’t mean he would no longer savor the assassination of Mr. Assange or that he would not defend it being carried out by a drone which of course would entail “collateral damage”, otherwise known as the death of humans. He still believes it –he is just sorry, really sorry he let the rest of us know. TIME it is up to you to do the right thing.