Broadcast Journo Hates Big Media Journalism Coverage

Chief CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who recently returned from Iraq, appeared on Tuesday’s Daily Show.

“Do we know anything about what’s going on over there?” Jon Stewart asked.

“I don’t think we really do have very much of an idea,” Logan replied. “We have all these armchair academics who go over for one visit. See Laura Bush saying, ‘This is my third time in Afghanistan.’ She doesn’t mention that she was only there for a few seconds.”

The outspoken Logan — who has stated in the past that Americans have no idea how badly the war is going because of the suppression of pictures of American casualties — made no attempt to hide her contempt for American coverage of the Iraq and Afghan Wars.

“Do you watch the news that we’re watching in the United States?” Stewart asked. “Do you see what we’re hearing about the war?”

“No,” replied Logan. “If I were to watch the news that you hear in the United States, I’d just blow my brains out, because it would drive me nuts.”

Logan explained how difficult it is to get the network interested in her stories. “I’m on high-value target raids, taking down some of the most wanted Taliban fighters and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, and I’m told … ‘Unless it’s Osama bin Laden, who cares about — you know, Mullah bin Shagged, whatever?’”

When Logan told of waking in Iraq one day after 3 hours sleep and thinking, “Oh fuck, I’ve got to get up,” Stewart chided her. “I don’t allow that type of language on the program. … I don’t care that you’ve spent the last five years in a war zone. We have standards here.”

“Usually that’s a good way to break the ice,” responded Logan. “You get into a humvee with soldiers and they’re all on their best behavior, they’ve been told not to swear about you, and you say, ‘Yo, what’s up motherfuckers,’ and then it’s all done.”

“Are we just numb?” Stewart asked. “Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation?”

“Yeah, we have,” agreed Logan. “Nobody really understands. And the soldiers do feel forgotten. … We may be tired of hearing about this five years later. They still have to go out and do the same job. … More soldiers died in Afghanistan last month than Iraq. Who’s paying attention to that?”

Link and viddie.

Meet Our Leaders' Principled Enablers

In his 1996 Frontline interview, Woodward said he gave all of his lecture money to charity, the charity in question being a foundation run by him and his wife, the Woodward Walsh Foundation. Woodward seems to have greatly increased his speaking appearances in recent years, which probably helps explain why his foundation’s assets have soared, from assets of $347,602 in 2000 to about $1.8 million last year.

Yet the foundation doesn’t seem to do much genuine charitable work. Last year it doled out a meager $17,555 in grants. Over recent years more than half of the foundation’s money went to Sidwell Friends, one of the richest private schools in Washington (with a reported endowment of over $30 million) that caters primarily to the children of the local elite (like Woodward’s children). Meanwhile, the foundation has also supported needy causes like “Citizens for Georgetown Trees,” which prettifies Woodward’s neighborhood, the “Little Folks Nursery School” (“For the 2007-2008 school year, the tuition is: For morning only–$12,150. For the full day–$14,900”), and In Town Playgroup, a private daycare outfit.

It makes one wonder what Ben Bradlee thinks of all this. You’re corrupted if you take money from corporate groups, but not if you give the money to charity? Even if it’s your own personal charity, and you get a tax break, and most of the contributions go to elite causes of direct interest to the donor? This looks to be the same sort of double-dealing and hypocrisy that Bob Woodward–at least the old Bob Woodward–would have been all over as a reporter, if a political figure were involved.

Link.