No media reputation is left unstained

END TIMES: The Death of the Fourth Estate

By Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

CounterPunch, Petrolia, Calif. 362 pages. $15.95

The death of the Fourth Estate is a gross exaggeration. The New York Times will probably be published in print centuries from now despite the suggestion by its publisher that the paper might not be printing in five years.

Be that as it may, anyone who still has a starry-eyed view of the media should read this book. Indeed, the title ought to be: “No Media Reputation Left Unstained.” Bob Woodward, Katharine Graham, Judy Miller and many other media stars are indicted. The sainted Times itself is justly lambasted.

Items for the Journalistic Hall of Shame:

• The Times in 2005 delayed a story for a year before disclosing that the Bush administration had sanctioned a program of secret, illegal spying on U.S. citizens by the National Security Agency. And, it did so at the request of the White House. That is hardly an adversarial press in the Land of the First Amendment.

In that story the Times’ waited until the 25^th to paragraph to mention that Vice President Cheney had briefed congressional leaders on the program. Only at the very end of the story--in the 48^th paragraph!—did the Times admit that the program was an assault on the Constitution.

• The Gary Webb episode was one of the greatest betrayals in U.S. journalism history. Webb, reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, wrote a “Dark Alliance” series in 1996 linking the CIA to drug trafficking. He was praised by his editor and given a bonus with a note: “Remarkable series!”

Then the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times attacked Webb and the series, “one of the most venomous and factually inane assaults on a professional journalist’s competence.” Webb correctly characterized the Contras of Nicaragua as the CIA’s army. But no matter.

The editor, Jerry Ceppos, soon to become journalism dean at the University of Nevada, Reno, wrote a letter to the Post defending the series. It was never published. Finally, Ceppos caved in under relentless assault. He repudiated the series. He said he didn’t want “to get into a war” with the newspaper Big Three.

When Ceppos retired in 2005 an article in the online Narcosphere, written by Luiz Gomez, characterized Ceppos as a Judas who had stabbed Webb in the back. Webb was exiled to the Cupertino, Calif., bureau. He resigned and eventually committed suicide. The press had killed Webb’s career. In effect, it killed him too. Subsequent admission by the CIA vindicated Webb.

Ceppos? He will hold the endowed chair at UNR--and probably teach media ethics.

• Graham, publisher of the Post, showed courage to pursue the Watergate exposé. But she turned into a gutless wonder, later declaring that the press was overstepping its bounds in its investigative fervor.

• Bob Woodward, the dogged reporter who pursued the huge Watergate story, became a flack. He churned out “insider” books, one particularly pleasing to President Bush.

• Judy Miller, New York Times reporter, may have done more than any other individual outside Bush to start the Iraq War. She was more loyal to big shot sources than to the truth. She became a cheerleader for the war, regurgitating press releases and supporting White House lies.

• The collapse of the government’s case against Wen Ho Lee in 2000 “represented one of the greatest humiliations of a national newspaper in the history of journalism.” The Times was guilty of the persecution of Lee, leading to “his solitary confinement under the threat of execution, his denial of bail, his shackling, the loss of his job, his anguish and terror endured by the scientist and his family.”

The book opens on a happier note with the parody of the Tedium Twins on “MacNeil-Lehner Report” on PBS. (Now the “Lehner Report.”) The twins are Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehner. Their telecast was narcotizing, carrying a tone of reverence.

They purported to bring on speakers from the Left but they were always lukewarm liberals. The media have little leftist broadcasts. The reason is simple: advertisers will not support progressive programs because they are “poison at the box office.”

Cockburn and St. Clair, publishers of the leftist newsletter, CounterPunch, boast of their 3 million hits online daily. But CounterPunch has no impact. Page one of the New York Times? It has impact. Ask Judy Miller and Wen Ho Lee.

Jake Highton teaches journalism at UNR. Email: jake@unr.edu