COMMENTARY: The truth about Prince Harry and Sandy Duerr
March 3, 2008
By DANIEL BLACKBURN
The major media’s collegial conspiracy to hide the fact of Britain’s Prince Harry’s frontline military service in Afghanistan says much about the sad state of journalism everywhere.
And what, you might be wondering, does that have to do with, say, Tribune Executive Editor Sandy Duerr? The correlation will become apparent if you, dear reader, will bear with me for a few hundred words. The truth, as we in the news biz like to say, will out.
About the prince, consider this: For no reason other than simple male machismo, this royal family member decides he wants to go to war, to “do his duty.” So to cater to this whim, he is assigned to the war zone and – God help me, this is true – the entire mega-media monolith agrees to play along with the folly. For nearly three months this self-imposed information gag succeeds, until finally an obscure Australian magazine, and then the Web-based Drudge Report, break the news.
Naturally, the Drudge Report as messenger was reviled by the mainstream media whose lips had been sealed by mutual but silent agreement, and subsequent commentary on the obvious scheme has been non-existent. Why would that be, we must wonder?
Yeah, yeah. Harry and his cohorts would have been targeted by al Qaeda, everyone would have been in mortal danger, ad nauseum. Here’s the real line: Harry shouldn’t have been there in the first place to further endanger his mates for his own self-satisfaction and wartime public relations hype. And he wouldn’t have been, if just one big news outlet had said “no” to this buffoonish international ruse.
God save the Queen? Why not save the truth?
It’s as though the entire world’s reporting staff is embedded. But with whom? To what end? Who is pulling these strings? How can it occur that such a secret, one without a shred of national security value to anyone, is treated like a sacred covenant by the people who have somehow been anointed as editors and other decision-makers in the world of big media?
Local media finds itself unchallenged by healthy competition and grows soft, and becomes malleable by outside influences like advertising revenues. But this media sterilization goes much deeper than the threat of diminishing dollars; this is much more ominous. For if we can be kept in the dark about a boy-prince playing out his fantasy of combat and heroism, what else serious is being kept from us? How can it be that local media – the one in which this Website toils – chooses to ignore, obfuscate, sanitize, and sometimes kill, news of significant importance to the community? How did the bond between the reporter and the reported-upon become so institutionally entwined?
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see the trickle-down darkness in all this. Local media, here and elsewhere, has found it easier, more community-conscious, even more American, to print or broadcast only the news that neither offends nor informs. This, though, creates a brew poisonous to self government.
About Duerr, consider this truth: This editor who has presided over the extensive neutering of a once-proud local newspaper wanted to teach our children journalism. She applied for the chair (the top professorial job) in Cal Poly’s Journalism Department. Yes, Mustang insiders: Pulitzer Prize-winning George Ramos is history. Duerr’s bid to replace him is, well, also history. Upon learning of her not-even-in-third-place rejection, Duerr was said to have tossed a genuine hissy-fit, and made the mistake of having it front of some who still love to report.
Hoping to change the subject, I called Duerr today to probe a more general subject: Which is the larger journalistic crime, absence of truth by commission, or by omission? But as luck would have it, I got a bit distracted and started off asking her if she knew why she was passed over for the Cal Poly chair post.
A long silence ensued. Then: “That search is confidential. They are still working on their finalists.”
Uh-huh. But about being passed over…?
“I was given a reason for being disqualified from the search,” the Ph.D.-less Duerr said, citing a lack of current teaching experience.
“I was given a reason for being disqualified from the search,” the Ph.D.-less Duerr said, citing a lack of current teaching experience.
Asked if she had been “demonstrably unhappy” upon learning of the university’s decision, she pointedly inquired about the source of my information and then said, “Absolutely not.” Also, she noted she is not planning on leaving her current post: “I love The Tribune.”
So there you have it. The truth, according to UncoveredSLO.com.
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