March 24, 2005
JTTF Story Begins To Hit Nationally
Get Ready For The Onslaught
One of the things we've been monitoring since Wednesday afternoon is the spread of this week's developments regarding Portland's participation in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. For most of that time, the Associated Press story slowly was making it around to Oregon news outlets. This evening, as we expected, that began to change.
That same A very poor version of that Associated Press story, according to a recent check of the Google News link used above, just recently hit the websites of outlets in Alabama, California, New York, Louisiana, the UK, Michigan, and California again.
In addition, that same article has been picked up on Wired News. Earlier today, a Reuters article hit the Web as well, and we expect that will begin making the rounds shortly.
So, the next twenty-four hours is when this story is going to start hitting outlets around the country, and likely also start being picked up by the national press (if it hasn't already).
All of which means, we suppose, get ready for the onslaught. The further this story spreads, the more quickly the distortions are going to begin. Those who know the real story need to be prepared to hit the inevitable deceptive -- or merely lazy -- coverage with fact-checking and clear argument.
This is going to get ugly, fast. In fact, the distorted coverage already has begun with the AP story in question, which ends with the misleading and over-simplified, "Foxworth issued a statement also pledging cooperation with federal officials."
And that's just the beginning of the piss-poor reporting we can expect on this story. It's only going to get worse.
Comments (4)
The One True b!X on 24 Mar 2005
FYI, I changed the Google News URL in that opening paragraph. This is the original one.
allehseya on 24 Mar 2005
(sigh) It's times like this that render me a frothing-at-the-mouth media reform advocate...
The One True b!X on 24 Mar 2005
This is nothing. As I said in another thread, I eagerly await the inevitable Oregonian editorial.
myrln on 25 Mar 2005
And the piss-poor "reporting" has begun in the Oregonian editorial> They seem to be worried Portland will get a bad reputation. What do they think it has now with Jordan running (read: screwing up) the FBI show? They simply ignore the Constitutional issues and the oversight issues. They're the kind of people who believe the Feds are implicitly trustworthy and have everyone's best interests at heart. They really are DUMB over their...or dangerous.