We used to be pretty confident that our news stories were at least reasonably truthful. We were always taught not to believe everything we read or heard; but the "mainstream media", though sometimes politically biased, were not straight-up lying. If Noam Chomsky or William F. Buckley said something, you knew which political direction they were coming from and could make your judgement accordingly.
But it seems as though that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Nowadays, you can never be sure that something you read or hear is not an out-and-out lie.
Two instructors at the University of Missouri at Kansas City -- Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC, and David Giljum, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers in St. Louis, Missouri, gave a 30-hour course on labor studies, labor politics, and society. The course was taught through a video conference between two UMKC campuses.
Two short clips from the videos were posted, first on YouTube, and then on a major blog called Big Government by someone named "Publius". The title of the post was Union Official, Professor Teach How-to College Course in Violent Union Tactics. Part of Publius's text was:
"In the class, the Professors not only advocate the occasional need for violence and industrial sabotage, they outline specific tactics that can be used. As one of our colleagues pointed out, its the matter-of-factness of it all that is so disturbing.Reporter Barb Shelly at The Kansas City Star compared the Big Government video clips to a transcript of the proceedings and wrote an article describing how she considered the videos to have been deceptively edited. In her article, she said:
"And yes, the schools, and the professors’ salaries, are funded by taxpayers."
"... the video skips among excerpted segments and places no value on context. The professors sound pretty far-out and irresponsible, but of course that’s the point."Someone named "P.J. Salvatore" responded on Big Journalism, a sister blog of Big Government, with a posting entitled Kansas City Star Decides to Show Up for the Game, defending the Publius post and videos and essentially doubling down, saying at one point:
"The thought never occurs to Purely Partisan Shelly that the professors in the videos actually said the things they are saying."Salvatore has a lot more, including discussion of the terms "excerpt", "edited", and "doctored". There is also reference to controversial videos posted on the Big Government site several months ago.
Two other major blogs, Crooks & Liars and Media Matters for America, got into the fray, siding with Shelly at The Star and condemning the videos as being deceptively edited.
The Crooks & Liars article by "karoli" excerpts a statement from Judy Ancel saying that the version presented by Publius is that “Violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.”
"The real version", says Ancel:
"After students had watched a film on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, they were discussing nonviolence. I said, 'One guy in the film. . . said "violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic." . . . The class proceeded to discuss and debate this.'"Ned Resnikoff at Media Matters says: "... they intentionally warped the meaning of Ancel and Giljum's words to score a cheap point."
Transcripts and videos compared after the jump.
Resolution
Finally! Both the Crooks & Liars and Media Matters postings included the two video clips from start to finish, along with a transcript of each clip highlighting the differences between the Big Government version and the actual version. Here's the Media Matters transcript of Giljum's remarks (the portions Big Government left out are in bold):
"GILJUM: I tend to agree with you, because I think if you look at labor's history over the years, you'll find that, you know, we've had a very violent history with violent protests and reaction to suppression. OK? But as time has changed, the tactics have changed, or the need for those have changed. OK?
"Now, you know, that's not to say that in certain instances, strategically played out and for certain purposes, that industrial sabotage doesn't have its place. I think it certainly does. But as far as -- You know, and I can't really honestly say that I've never wished, or have never been in a position where I have haven't wished real harm on somebody or inflicted any pain and suffering on some people--
"STUDENT: We're all human.
"GILJUM: --who didn't ask for it, but, you know, it certainly has its place. It certainly makes you feel a hell of a lot better sometimes, but beyond that I'm not sure as a tactic today, the type of violence or reaction to the violence we had back then would be called for here, and I think it would do more harm than good."
Ned Resnikoff comments:
"Big Government clipped out both crucially qualifying statements, and putting them back in changes the entire context of the quote. Given how they edited it, it's hard to see how you could argue that the deception wasn't intentional."For the Ancel clip, here's karoli at Crooks & Liars (the portions Big Government left out are in bold):
To avoid prejudicing a reader, I've tried to present the situation in a neutral way, sticking to fact, trying not to inject my opinion. I studiously avoided the word "Breitbart" until the last paragraph, because even a casual news reader could well associate the name with the vile little sneak James O'Keefe and the various other smears and deceptions Breitbart has been involved in (There, I've injected my opinion! I did it, and I'm glad!)."'ANCEL: The one guy in the film, one of the guys who had been one of the young, um, SNCC types, said --"If those unedited remarks are read as they stand, even without surrounding context, it's clear the Breitbart video was edited to make it appear that Giljum and Ancel said the exact opposite of what they actually did say."
"'[crosstalk]
"'-- he represented the kind of thinking that went into this student on the coordinating committee and then later probably -- well, coinciding with the Black Panthers. You know, he said violence is a tactic and it's to be used when it's appropriate, when it's an appropriate tactic. Whether -- they never come back to him to ask him what he thought of the window-smashing in that march or whether or not that was done by them or others or provocateurs. We don't know that.'
Anyway, you can't believe what you read, especially on notoriously biased sites like Big Government and Big Journalism. (Disclaimer: Crooks & Liars and Media Matters are slanted to the left, as I'm sure they would not deny.) And I'm not trying to argue for false equality here: Although lefties are not lily-white, "biased" is not the same thing as "dishonest". I would deplore dishonesty on the left, too.
Wade through all this stuff and decide for yourself! Here are the links:
Publius, Big Government: Union Official, Professor Teach College Course In Violent Union Tactics
Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star: Andrew Breitbart Targets Missouri Profs
P.J. Salvatore, Big Journalism: Kansas City Star Decides to Show Up for the Game
karoli, Crooks & Liars: Breitbarted Again? BigGovernment Uses Deceptively Edited Video To Smear University Professors - UPDATED
Ned Resnikoff, Media Matters for America: Breitbart Starts Big Push To "Go After Teachers" With His Trademark Deception
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