The Bush Administration was outraged recently that a story Newsweek published supposedly “caused” a deadly riot in Afghanistan.
Here is what happened:
The Newsweek reporter was told by a “senior Pentagon
official” whose previous information was reliable.
The Newsweek story was shown to the Pentagon before it
was published. The Pentagon took issue with one item
covered, but not the Koran item.
After the story was published, days transpired before
the rioting occurred and the administration took issue with it.
It has been determined that extremist elements in
Afghanistan used the story to inflame the Muslims there.
Scott McLellan, The White House spokesma said on May 15
that Newsweek had done damage to America’s image
abroad and to it’s credibility.
Excuse us, what credibility, what image?
This report has had serious consequences.”,
McClellan continued.
The real question is Consequences for whom?
It seems clear to us that Newsweek is being used as a scapegoat
for America's troubles abroad. That the magazine chose
to cave in to White House pressure and take the blame for all
the deaths in Afghanistan is very disturbing and plays
right into the hands of an administration that has since day one sought to intimidate and silence media. The caving in of Newsweek is
especially troubling given the fact that jailers abusing the
Koran have been well-documented by many other news
organizations before them.
More disturbing was the quick and rabid commetary from other media outlets. It seems to us that when the mainstream media allows one of their own to be singled out and scapegoated like this, it cheapens the truth and drives yet another stake through the dead and impotent body of the US mainstream media. One would have thought that they would have stood together against this attempt to blame the White Houses' foreign relation problems on the "liberal media." One would have thought that they would have stood for truth, justice and all those other principles which used to be American points of pride.
One would think that they whould be dispelling lies and deceit,
not spreading it around.
The White House and the media both owe an explanation. Scott McLellan needs to resign for lying to the American people for mere political gain. And those in our media need to grow spines and start reporting the truth again, not just what the government wants them to say. A democracy works only when you have an informed people steering it. If you have a misinformed people, you invariably get a dysfunctional democracy.
From the Iraq war onward, so many of our problems right now come from having a deceived and/or misinformed populace. The time has come for all of the media to literally yell the truth from the rooftops because the administration has planted a garden full of deceit and lies. It is the duty of the Media to educate and inform the populace and so far they have been failing miserably.
This administration has long sought to intimidate the press from exploring issues it doesnt want explored.
Take for example, to the CBS/Dan Rather report on President Bush's military service. To this day, we don't know if what Rather reported was accurate or not, or to what degree it may have been accurate. Nor do we know whether the
documents he cited were genuine. All we know is that CBS can't verify that they were genuine. The end result was once again the Bush Administration had intimidated other journalists from trying to pin down the full truth about the President's military service.
The undeniable result of the Newsweek debacle is that probably
now there will be even less enterprise reporting on prisoner abuse or anything else that might embarrass this administration. It also fits in neatly with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's effort to muzzle public television and radio.
Our democracy is heavily dependent on a free press to publish information it believes to be true. The administration is complaining loudly that Newsweek shouldn’t have published the story. For the media to withhold information for fear of the wrath of the government is a characteristic of dictatorships and is becoming all too common lately.
We guess this is what the President means by his version of “freedom”.
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