It doesn't make Hersh right (I don't know if he is or not), but I do know that a common response to outsiders who challenge insiders is to attack their character. It's a way of creating FUD and of deterring others.
I thought Hersh made a great point when he was on On the Media last week. If he's even partly right it means that the main media got the story very wrong and didn't do any real research into verifying the administration claims.
So either the media has to admit that they, as a whole, massively screwed up the story (not unlike the WMD stuff) or they can just attack Hersh and not seem to lose any credibility.
In other words, it's in their best interest he's wrong even if he's right. It was a very good interview.
Today, no sane person takes what she reads/watches in the media on face value. Journalism as a profession has lost much of it's respect and credibility in my lifetime. Most news papers, TV/radio stations and online properties have some agenda or the other and they act according to that, openly and shamelessly, truth be damned (liberal, conservative, religious, left, right...whatever).
But even for them, attacking a very distinguished journalist's character, instead of analyzing his work on it's merit is new low.
Actually i see a lot of people who believe their chosen media with all the agenda that involves. You can call them not sane, but they're out there. Whether it's fox or something more or less extremist than that, they just don't want to analyse on their own.
They may be uneducated or gullible or lacking the will to question preprocessed information... But likely sane.
>I thought Hersh made a great point when he was on On the Media last week. If he's even partly right it means that the main media got the story very wrong and didn't do any real research into verifying the administration claims.
I don't think this is entirely fair, if he's referring to media coverage in the years before his piece. Only a small number of intelligence and military officials across the world know the truth about the operation. Any US, or likely even Pakistani, officials interviewed by the media would likely have corroborated the Obama administraiton's original story. Without a high-level leaker, there isn't a lot the media could have done.
It's a different story for how the media handles things in the face of Hersh's expose, though.
It's been a week since I listen to the piece but I remember him making some good points. I seem to remember him pointing out that the compound was heavily guarded, but no one shot at the choppers. There's also something about repelling down the ropes from the choppers instead of taking it by land.
Sorry my memory is failing me. The basic point is he did make it seem like they were threads the media could've pulled at to at least give the administration story a bit more of a skeptical eye.
Gary Webb was the first thing that came to my mind as well. I don't have a cite for it but my recollection is that the government worked closely with rival papers to discredit both the story and Webb personally.
It doesn't make Hersh right (I don't know if he is or not), but I do know that a common response to outsiders who challenge insiders is to attack their character. It's a way of creating FUD and of deterring others.