Ft Hood: Yet more media "inaccuracy"

November 13, 11:46 PMMadison Independent ExaminerGregory Patin

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Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates meeting with Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley at a hospital in Ft. Hood, Texas, Tuesday Nov. 10, 2009. AP Photo/DOD - Cherie Cullen

From the earliest reports, it was obvious that the corporate media dropped the ball on the coverage of the Ft. Hood shootings. Now there is yet more evidence that the media did nothing more than parrot the military's version of what happened.

According to The New York Times on Nov. 7th, police Sgt. Kimberly Munley heroically faced the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and put an end to the rampage by shooting him several times while sustaining several wounds herself.

According to The New York Times on Nov. 12th, a second police officer, Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, is the one who finally subdued the alleged gunman.

While that makes Sgt. Munley no less of a hero if either of the versions of the story are accurate, it does underscore one inescapable fact: In a rush to get a story out, media outlets simply report whatever they are told by the government and/or military without bothering to check the facts. As with WMDs in Iraq, the Jessica Lynch story, the Pat Tillman story and who knows what else, "journalists" in mainstream media did nothing more than repeat as "fact" whatever they were told by "sources" without questioning it.

Investigative journalism, like fact-checking, is also a thing of the past in corporate, mainstream media, which may explain why public perception of media credibility has reached a new low. John Stewart and his team at Comedy Central have shown numerous times that they can fact-check stories more efficiently than Fox, CNN, etc. Independent investigative journalists not employed by corporate media have done a much better job of bringing the facts to their readers, despite limited financial resources.

In an email to Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher, Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote: "What we and other news organizations (at least the ones I saw) had to go on in the early days was the official account put out by the post commander and the director of emergency services. They said (accurately) that Munley rushed to the scene and that she was shot. They claimed (inaccurately, we now know) that she fired the shot or shots that brought Hasan down. We reported what they said, attributed to them."

That puts it very succinctly. In a rush to get the scoop, reporters become stenographers and both fact-checking and investigative journalism is left to independent media and the bloggers. The problem is that real questions get put on the shelf while corporate media rushes to the next breaking story, and the truth can get lost in the clutter and sound bytes that have become the essence of mainstream media.

What else will turn out "inaccurate" regarding the claims from the military about the Fort Hood incident, the "Allahu Akbar" shouts, details of Hasan's past, the number of shooters?  Will our media continue to drop the ball?