It dawns on someone in the media elite: Better late than never.

***

Bruce Kesler notes:

Blog reports about Marvin Kalb’s Harvard Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy study, The Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict, (40-page PDF) are quoting heavily from the report on the study at World Politics Watch, How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah: Harvard’s Cautionary Report.

The World Politics Watch summary is accurate, and telling, of the biased impact of coverage provided by the Western and Arab media.

However, the World Politics Watch concluding paragraphs are stronger than Kalb’s study. World Politics Watch calls for vigilance and responsibility by Western reporters, and even moreso by their editors and the talking heads at home, not to be taken in, not to permit themselves to be part of propaganda exercises by our enemies, and to more clearly label any such reports as such and say what’s missing.

In the actual study, Kalb’s conclusions bemoan the suspicions of MSM coverage roused by bloggers who exposed fake reporting and photography. All that Kalb, weakly, says about the ethical and professional irresponsibility of the major media is, “The challenge for responsible journalists covering asymmetrical warfare, especially in this age of the Internet, is new, awesome and frightening.”

Kalb doesn’t mention that there is only one allowable prescription for the major media, to stick by professional standards rather than sensationalist irresponsibility. It also wouldn’t hurt if the MSM displayed some ethical standards, recognizing the difference between right and wrong, between friend and foe.