1: The Hypocritical Media
Adler says CBS threatened to sue her for libel for writing this book. Isn't it ironic that the defenders of First Amendment protection threatened to go against the very argument they're defending in the subject of this book? This book is replete with such media hypocricies. This book could be used as a textbook for either media ethics or legal studies ethics. It is full of examples of the absence of both. Indeed seeing is not believing as she gives blatant illustrations where answers to questions were taken out of context and edited to make it appear they were the responses to particular questions. Interviewees' titles were inflated and the finished product was presented as a defense of the producer's thesis, not an objective journalistic inquiry. All of that in the CBS-Westmoreland case. In Sharon v. Time, the credibility of their writers, editors, and attorneys is laughable if this account is what really took place and she says it is. I don't understand why several people weren't in jail for perjury following these two trials. In the coda she claims CBS threatened her and her publisher and encouraged them not to print the book, but in their threat couldn't find a single factual error in its content. Even though these trials took place decades ago, they're still relevant as they describe the inner workings of two major institions, the legal system and mass media.
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