Media On Stupid Fucking Credulous Hacks Mike Carter and Paul Shukovsky
posted by on April 25 at 12:31 PM
Some folks in the comments thread on Dom’s post yesterday about those stupid fucking credulous hacks at the Seattle Times and PI—Mike Carter and Paul Shukovsky—admonished me for being mean to those stupid fucking credulous hacks Carter and Shukovsky. If we want to have an impact on the way stupid fucking credulous hacks like Carter and Shukovsky report about the War on Drugs and grow-op busts—they currently report with their tongues lodged in the asses of whatever DEA spokesperson appears before them—we should be nice and respectful and polite. “You’ll catch more stupid fucking flies with stupid fucking honey blah blah blah.”
We’ve already tried being polite. The posts Dom and I wrote about this particular grow-op bust weren’t the very first posts we’ve written taking the dailies to task for their failure to live up to their own professed standards of objectivity, impartiality, and fairness when it comes to drug busts. (Shukovsky is capable of being objective, as Dom pointed out, but only when it comes to alleged pedophiles.)
Here’s a nice, respectful post I wrote last October about a grow-op bust story in the PI…
…forty one paragraphs about indoor grow-ops in King County, the violence associated with them, the emerging Southeast Asian connection, and the deleterious impact all of this is having on the quality of the food served in area Vietnamese restaurants. Seriously. But there isn’t a single graph in Levi Pulkkinen’s story—not one sentence, not a measly parenthetical, not a hint—about how marijuana prohibition is responsible for the lawlessness that Pulkkinen writes about/takes dictation from the police about….It would be great if the PI was as anxious to inform its readers about the benefits of marijuana legalization—and the futility of the war on pot (anybody at the PI having any trouble scoring pot lately? didn’t think so)—as the paper is to breathlessly report every heroic detail of the local, state, and federal government’s destructive and ineffective war on a plant. How many times do we have to read the exact same story about pot? Grow op busted! Violence associated with illegal activity! So many tons seized! Blah blah blah. When will the daily papers stop helping to wage the drug war and start actually reporting on it?
And here’s a nice, respectful post I wrote about a grow-op bust story in the Seattle Times last July…
The story in today’s Seattle Times details—no, it glorifies—the work being done to root out grow operations in our area. The busts, the people going to jail, what we’ve learned, how we can fight this scourge. The effort has, of course, eaten up massive amounts of local and federal law enforcement time, landed a bunch of poor motherfuckers in jail, and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. And no where in the piece does the Seattle Times mention, oh, the sheer ridiculous futility of all of this.…
Where are the quotes from a pro-decriminalization organizations? Local pot smokers? The large and growing number of Americans who, despite decades of slanted and biased coverage like this, have concluded that the war on drugs is a waste of time, money, and lives? If I wanted to read White House Drug Policy Office press releases I could go to their fucking website. Do I really need to read them on yours?
And here’s another. And another. And another.
We’ve written about this crap again and again. And I know the reporters at the Seattle Times and PI have read the polite posts we’ve written about their unbelievably biased coverage—all those nice respectful posts—because I’ve typically received a mewling, defensive, not-for-publication email from the reporters after I put up one these posts. I guess I’ve finally lost my patience. I’m sick of being polite.
Again, no one is asking for screeds against the War on Drugs—that’s our job. We certainly don’t expect reporters at the PI and Seattle Times to flip from a pro-War-on-Drugs bias to an anti-War-on-Drugs bias. But when reporters at Seattle’s daily papers fail—utterly fail—to apply the same standards of objectivity and impartiality to drug stories that they make such a fuss about applying to all other stories, again, we’re going to call out the stupid fucking credulous hacks.
And here, courtesy of a Slog commenter, and for ease of reference, are a few of the questions that the PI and Seattle Times need to ask grow-ops are busted:
Do such raids work? Are they cost effective? Are they unnecessarily dangerous, either to the police or the suspects? Do they actually reduce the amount of pot on the streets? Do they make us any safer? Would simply legalizing it make us safer? Does filling our prisons with everyone involved in pot growing or smoking help or harm society in any measurable way?
So why did you have Dominic edit his title, but you didn't edit either of yours?
Slow news day on the hill huh?
Or, what I actually want to ask, how was Dominic's initial title any worse than yours? In fact, it wasn't half as bad.
The Drug War is as bad a waste of American patriots' tax dollars as the Iraq War is.
But it still won't get that 14 acres of prime downtown Seattle real estate between Denny Park and the Ban Roll On building developed - cause the developers pulled the plug today (front page major article in the Wall Street Journal, spills to a full page in the A section).
Which means no building along the streetcar route for most of it's length after Denny and no big increase in streetcar ridership.
Shutting down the grow ops just cuts the cash flow for big building investments ...
Don't ignore me, bitch. Why do Stranger staffers only reply when they're sure their answer is legitimate and/or irrefutable in terms of reason?
What's good for you is good for your staff.
Mr. Poe, darling, I posted this and then when to lunch. Despite appearances, we don't have our laptops strapped to our faces. Not yet. And sometimes Stranger staffers stay out of comments threads because we have other work to do.
As for Dom's header v. my header: I thought Dom's header seemed much angrier the post it appeared on top of, so I asked him to change it. It didn't work. My header is right in line with the tone of my post. It works.
Thank you for playing Slog.
I guess that makes sense. I figured you were ignoring me because you have been up the comments ass on this topic lately. Constantly responding, to everyone, immediately. I need to be punished.
Dude, chill.
Emailed the editor at The Times, received his reply already:
I'm sharing your e-mail with the folks involved in the coverage and with
other decision-makers here. Take care. -- Leon Espinoza, executive news
editor
-----Original Message-----
From: ____ _ [mailto:______@______]
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 1:07 PM
To: Leon Espinoza
Subject: Question of fairness
Good afternoon, Mr. Espinoza.
I've been reading the continuing coverage over on The Stranger's Slog
regarding the recent pot bust article in The Seattle Times. I have to
say that The Stranger's staff raises some good questions about
objectivity, and about The Seattle Times' willingness to cover both
sides of the issue or not.
More specifically, they asked:
Do such raids work? Are they cost effective? Are they unnecessarily
dangerous, either to the police or the suspects? Do they actually reduce
the amount of pot on the streets? Do they make us any safer? Would
simply legalizing it make us safer? Does filling our prisons with
everyone involved in pot growing or smoking help or harm society in any
measurable way?
Will The Seattle Times be looking into these questions, and writing any
articles to address them?
Thank you,
_____ _____
Snohomish, WA
Mr. Meany McMeanPants said @6
"Despite appearances, we don't have our laptops strapped to our faces. Not yet. And sometimes Stranger staffers stay out of comments threads because we have other work to do."
Ah, dammit, way to crush my beliefs in the omniscience of the Stranger writers. I thought you guys were hardwired into Slog 24/7. Other work to do? Besides read us bitching? What a letdown.
It's most likely a lie, PopTart. A convinient one, as we have no way to prove it wrong. But I wuvz Dan too much to not shut up and smile. I still need to be punished, though. Hint.
*convenient. FUCK! FUUUUCK!!!
There's a bigger issue here, namely the establishment media's absolute failure in their entire raison d'être which (presumably) is informing the public.
We have more access to information than any other era in human history, yet Americans are even more ignorant, misinformed, and just downright stupid than ever.
There are no facts anymore in loo-loo Mainstream Media Land, only opinions and government press releases. Open lies--hello weapons of mass destruction--are published as without question. Remember that one White House correspondent who said she couldn't ask Bush about his lies since she was intimidated by the Office of the President? She's STILL a political correspondent!! (Of course).
FSM help me, I don't want to sound like one of those looney tunes commenters on Alternet or HuffPo, but for fuck's sake, how can people stand this Pravda-esque bullshit?
It's no wonder politicians treat the media and the public with such open contempt.
So, Dan... were either of them at the benefit last night? Did they talk with you? Are there comments off-the-record?
When can we start mailing them something?
@11, and what, Mr. Poe, would be an adequate punishment for you? Would it involve a muppet costume?
Nah, I think anything Dan would dish out you'd like way too much. Unless it was taping your eyelids open and being forced to read ECB's posts while simultaneously listening to her read them. That might do it.
They weren't there—or, if they were, no one had the nerve to introduce us.
@16
...that would have been awkward, anyway. Mike would have been cool about it. The other guy (whatever his name is shukubanakakaru) would have been a total douche.
@15
I love ECB's posts.
A fitting punishment for Mr. Poe, You are now ordered to be a judge for the KISW Rock Girls 2008 contest.
I mean if you want punishment, we will give you punishment you won't like.
Isn't it obvious by now? The institution of government pays huge numbers of people, huge amounts of dollars to do the same worthless, even harmful things over and over. It is self sustaining, self lobbying public relations jack. They are never going to give up their addiction to anti-drug money no matter how harmful it, and they, may be. And as long as we support the never ending growing field of incarcerations and billions of dollars for more and more prisons it shall always be. Now isn't it better to be a lap dog? It's so much more comfortable.
@17 Oh, sorry, my bad. Now I have to be punished.
Punishment for everyone! Where's the rope?!
@19: i am the editor of RESIST! which is an independent literery magazine at Highline High School and we would like to publish your thoughts pleaes email me at gunsofbrixxxton93@ a i m .com thx!
If you and Carter ever duked it out, I'd put my money on Carter - Muddafugga's and looks like a roadie for Motorhead.
You do all realize the Times just laid off 200 and the PI was *this* close to being closed altogether about a year ago, no?
Lazy reporting happens more often than good reporting because good reporting is more expensive -- much more expensive -- in terms of both time and money. Two things neither paper has much of right now.
What came first in the newspaper biz, the degenerating product or the degenerating business model? The degenerating product, actually, but now these papers are on a death spiral that's going to get worse before it gets better, so don't expect a big turnaround in depth of coverage on stories that are already conveniently covered in government press releases.
This all is a good opportunity for papers like the Stranger to pick up the slack and segue from their trademark snarky pee-pee bar-scene reporting to more useful reporting, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Or maybe the big, heavily researched Stranger cover story on the effects of the drug war is in production now. Looking forward to it.
24 has hit upon it: time, money, resources. they are sorely lacking in the news biz theze daze. expect more of same. blogs have taken over for in-depth reporting, it seems. bloggers do it on their own time, reporters are on a deadline and a budget.
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