Howard Kurtz calls out the media on the TSA junk journalism stories

[TeamJordan23]

The Media's Pat-Down Frenzy
by Howard Kurtz
November 22, 2010

The press has taken a few revolting TSA passenger encounters and blown the story wildly out of proportion. Howard Kurtz on the making of a "junk" journalism epidemic.

You might get the impression, from the way the coverage has achieved warp speed, that millions of airline passengers are being groped and humiliated by heavy-handed security guards.

From network newscasts to local TV, from newspaper front pages to a blur of Web headlines, it seems untold numbers of women are having their breasts touched and untold numbers of men are feeling the intrusive hands of government guards near their packages.

Actually, that’s far from true. Despite some outrageous incidents involving idiotic conduct, with 2 million passengers screened each day, more than 99 percent are unaffected by the new policy.

“Very few people actually get the pat-down at all,” John Pistole, who runs the Transportation Security Administration, told me. “I don’t know what the impression is” from all the media scrutiny, he says, “but it’s a very, very small number.”

First, the only people subjected to pat-downs are those who opt out of the new full-body scanners or set off the alarm (which can be triggered by having anything in your pockets, not just metal). Second, these scanners are in use at just 70 of the country’s 453 airports, although more are being rolled out next year.

And yet after a full week of journalistic flogging, the story again led the three network morning shows and network newscasts today, with Pistole dragging himself from one program to the next for the ritual hazing. It was on the front page of The New York Times. It has gotten the Saturday Night Live treatment, a promo with leering TSA guards promising a sexy experience.

So how did this story streak into the media stratosphere?

While many of the full-body scanners were rolled out November 1, the more stringent policy wasn’t announced under a why-alert-al-Qaeda approach. But on November 13, software engineer John Tyner posted a video on his obscure blog in which he told a guard at the San Diego airport, “If you touch my junk I’ll have you arrested.” The Drudge Report posted a link, the tape went viral and Pistole found himself being questioned about the case on CNN. His words had a crude elegance, a cross between a country western lament and a battle cry for the 21st century.

The narrative combines a number of elements: Hassled airline passengers (who can’t relate to that?); terrorism concerns; invasion of privacy, and a hint of sexual naughtiness. But the key here is that every local news outlet in America could send a reporter or a crew to a nearby airport and grab a piece of the action.

Continue Reading: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-22/tsa-body-scan-pat-down-policy-sparks-media-frenzy/?cid=hp:mainpromo1

[LisaL]

1. 1 % of 2 millions per day is not a small number, no matter

what the author of this article is trying to say.

[woo me with science]

2. I am getting fucking sick of the apologists.

The number of scanners is 385 now but will climb to well over 1000 next year.

We have TSA explaining that they are not doing cavity searches because they are not necessary, not because they would be WRONG.

ONE American having his or her crotch groped for illusory "safety" is too many. This is an invasion of privacy, of liberty, and of dignity, and if we do not stop it, it will be happening in our malls and subway stations.

People need to wake up. This is not NEARLY enough protest yet.

[FormerDittoHead]

3. +1 - Here is a great summary of the situation by Professor Fred H. Cate

http://cacr.iu.edu/sites/cacr.iu.edu/files/TSA-Policy.pdf

[woo me with science]

4. Thank you. nt

[LisaL]

5. My feelings exactly.

They pat people down but what are they going to do if they find something like an insulin pump? They have no clue what's in it? I call it a dog and pony show.

[tavalon]

13. This is great, thanks for sharing it

The OP editorial, not so much.

[Mojorabbit]

17. +10000 nt

[Supersedeas]

6. Howard Kurtz shoots for superficial criticism of the media and hits his mark--no real harm done

but that's what counts as "keeping them honest" in the cocktail world of Howard Kurtz.

[tsuki]

7. I am sick of the Reagan Bedwetters like Kurtz. Enablers. nt

[lunatica]

8. Howard Kurtz sounds like a good citizen to me.

He's an apologist who wants to be "the gatekeeper" of the news so he can tell people what to think. He actually said that only he claims journalists' jobs are to tell people what the news really is so they understand it.

fuck him.

[truebrit71]

9. Oh just fuck off Howie...you are one of the WORST example of "journalist".

..currently polluting the airwaves...

[Supersedeas]

15. Re-lying Re-lie Relishing the Lie of the Beltway Cocktail Sources

Reliable Sources -- that show is a complete joke....unless you think regurgitating a Media lie (in an attempt to bolster the lie) to make the lie sound not soooo bad, makes for entertaining CNN Programing. Howard Kurtz is THE SHILL the Corporate Media Sources go to for a little pat on the back after they are caught in blatant lying.

[treestar]

10. So many things are like that nowadays

The media wants attention. That's why they love disasters. Sometimes the talking heads sound just plain excited about a terrible thing, and it makes me sick.

When there is no disaster, they create one by exaggerating something out of proportion.

[FormerDittoHead]

11. 170,000 innocent people got GROPED last week - that's NOT "OK"!

http://nationaljournal.com/member/whitehouse/white-house-fights-pat-down-backlash-20101122

"For instance, the administration noted that fewer than one half of one percent of the 34 million passengers who traveled on airplanes in or to the U.S. last week were subjected to crotch-area pat-downs."

That's 170,000 in one week.

[fatbuckel]

24. Excerpts from your linked story.

“More than 2 million passengers travel every day in the United States, and by all accounts, they are overwhelmingly cooperating with these measures,” said Smith. “Ninety-nine percent of passengers choose to go through an AIT machine where they have that option, and the number of complaints on the pat-downs relative to people who receive them is minuscule.”

http://nationaljournal.com/member/whitehouse/white-house-fights-pat-down-backlash-20101122

"Passengers who refuse to move through a full-body scanner--which detects anomalies by bouncing radio waves off their bodies--are subject to the intrusive pat-downs. So are passengers whose scans reveal something hidden, as well as passengers who pass through garden-variety magnetometers and set off alarms."


http://nationaljournal.com/member/whitehouse/white-house-fights-pat-down-backlash-20101122


"Before press coverage of the new rules reached a roar late last week, TSA received only 700 complaints nationwide about its procedures, an administration official said. The official insisted on anonymity because the information was not intended for public release. The issue is sensitive because physical space intrusions are just about the last thing an administration cast by Republicans as prone to governmental overreach needs."


http://nationaljournal.com/member/whitehouse/white-house-fights-pat-down-backlash-20101122


We don`t need to froth up people. No real news here.

[ellie]

12. It's too late Howie,

you were already named as a hack by Salon. Sorry.

[jefferson_dem]

14. Howie's spot on this time.

The media has produced and promoted a new "shiny object" to drive coverage and attract an anxious audience. They loves them some "authority-disorder" narrative, as Lance Bennett refers to it.

[chieftain]

16. I knew if I lived long enough Howie Kurtz would say something

with which I agreed. With this uncommon example of common sense from Howie the Hack,I can check that item off my bucket list.

[Supersedeas]

23. Howie will make a shallow point here or there, but substantive criticism of the Media does get him

free drinks at best DC restaurants.

He will always be a company waterboy.

[Whisp]

18. finally the truth on this stupidity.

fucking stupid people of all stripes.
all caught up in this black man responsible for fondling women and children.

idioits.

[Whisp]

19. we do know what the media is like

don't we?

or has it changed suddenly and gone all honest and shit since Bush left?

:rofl:
not funny tho

[Phx_Dem]

20. He's 100% right. n/t

[madinmaryland]

21. I swear I have heard the same thing here on DU from the

TSA apologists.

[high density]

22. Hey Kurtz, this has been going on for decades now.

I don't know why he'd choose this issue to finally take notice of what has become of "journalism."