The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism

[snooper2]

Summary: A bombshell story published in the Washington Post this week alleged that the NSA had enlisted nine tech giants, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple, in a massive program of online spying. Now the story is unraveling, and the Post has quietly changed key details. What went wrong?



Updated June 9 to include details of the Guardian's coverage, a link to the Post's correction policy, and a quote from the Huffington Post.

On Thursday, June 6, the Washington Post published a bombshell of a story, alleging that nine giants of the tech industry had “knowingly participated” in a widespread program by the United States National Security Agency (NSA).

One day later, with no acknowledgment except for a change in the timestamp, the Post revised the story, backing down from sensational claims it made originally. But the damage was already done.

The primary author of the story, Barton Gellman, is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the Washington Post has a history in investigative journalism that goes back to Watergate and All the President’s Men. On a roster of journalistic failures, this one has to rank near the very top.

This story was part of a busy week for attention-grabbing stories on the topic of U.S. Government surveillance. The Post was playing catch-up to the Guardian, whose UK and US editions had broken numerous stories, several of them by-lined by Glenn Greenwald. On Wednesday, the Guardian had published details of a Top Secret court order that required Verizon to hand over records disclosing the call data of millions of its customers. On Friday, they published another classified document outlining a U.S. Presidential Policy Directive to draw up a hit list for cyber-attacks.

Much More---


http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-the-collapse-of-journalism-7000016570/

[creon]

1. yes

Newsgathering is not very good. It has never been excellent.

[BeyondGeography]

2. This is part of what happens when everyone has to be a "star" in order to make a living

Journalists (a profession to which Greenwald only loosely belongs) are now measured by how many times their stories are e-mailed, number of twitter followers and tv/video presence. They are supposed to be fully-integrated media models in and of themselves. With newsroom economics collapsing all around them, they are taking risks that wouldn't have been contemplated years ago. A guy like Greenwald, who is agenda-driven and never met a piece of unsupported innuendo he didn't like as long as it advanced his little franchise du jour (which he is very skilled at leveraging, to be sure), makes life even harder for the actual professionals.

[snooper2]

5. people like to live on outrage

it's farily sad but it is the state of things

[Life Long Dem]

3. Greenward and Snowden are operating in self interest and for this they have manufactured a scandal

This is just a repeat of what we have known which they are trying to sell as the "biggest leak in US political history". Which is bullshit.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022982152

[LiberalEsto]

4. It's not the "collapse" of journalism

It's the acquisition of the media by the 1%/corporate interests through deregulation and possibly economic manipulation.