Leid Stories - 06/18/13

The Media, the Messenger and the Message: The NSA Story In Black and White (Part 2)

The conversation continues about media coverage of a highly touted series of stories alleging wholesale abuses of Americans’ privacy rights by the Obama administration’s National Security Agency.

The story broke on June 5 in The Guardian (London), with additional related “exposés” in The Washington Post and The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), and all reports so far are based on purportedly classified documents leaked to the media outlets by Edward Snowden, a systems analyst hired by the NSA to do contract work. Leid Stories proceeds with its assertion that the stories – and Snowden -- are rife with inconsistencies, fall far short of journalistic standards (especially for investigative pieces), and clearly illustrate a racist mind-set that permeates both the industry and society: Even if delusional and just plain wrong, a white person still will be accorded a level of respect, credibility and legitimacy that his black “target” will not. Snowden is the people’s champion; Obama, the usurper of rights and violator of the people’s trust.