There are two salient features to examine in the current intersection of irresponsible Big Media and Hypersensitive Islamists. There are already people dead because of the Newsweek story and it illuminates the two sides of an ugly reality.
Mark Whitaker writes an editorial explaining how Newsweek decided to report on the now discredited story of the desecration of the Koran at Gitmo. I no longer read Newsweek and I can not comment on whether or not they ever did much reporting of the al Qaeda manual that counseled their members to claim abuse, torture, etc when captured; if they did, it is safe to say they didn't seem to take it into account when reporting their "scoop". And look at the explanation of the riots and death that followed:
After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghanistan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.
Please note that the "riots started" (by themselves?) and "spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy." This is such an egregious misreading of the situation that it suggests Newsweek is either completely incompetent, consciously (or possibly unconsciously) ignorant and blind, or actively working for the Islamists (which I do not believe, yet have to state lest I be taken out of context). The MSM have been downplaying and ignoring the nature of the enemy in this war since it started (and it started anywhere from the early 1920's to 9/11, depending on one's perspective). If Newsweek recognized that civilization is at war with nihilistic Islamofascism, they would never have made such a ridiculous statement, that the riots were fanned by unhappiness over the economy. The riots were prompted by Newsweek supplying ammunition to the Islamists, who have been waiting for the opportunity to attack and were able to harness the anger of the hypersensitive Islamist masses to cause chaos and bloodshed. Our enemies, as they forever tell us if we only listen, "love death" and that is (to them) their strength. They constantly harp on our infidel status as all the justification they need to attack us. Death to anyone who insults Islam is an old threat; has Newsweek already forgotten that the death fatwa against Salman Rushdie was just recently reaffirmed?
It is valid to wonder why Newsweek would made such an error. Many have written about this. Jeff Jarvis suggests that one explanation for using such a poorly sourced (pseudo) story is part of a journalistic game; there are two varieties he mentions:
Show-off -- in which the journalist delights in knowing something no one else knows and wants to tell the world before everyone else does, even if it's not assuredly true.
Gotcha -- in which the reporter think he has exposed something somebody wanted to hide.
In either case you have journalists believing that their particular words are the crucial element in any story; it is all about them, not the story. They pursue a higher journalistic standard of proof which disdains real world consequences for their actions. I would suggest that the editors and reporters of Newsweek believe simultaneously that their words are towering, important constructs, and altogether devoid of any real actionable content. Their words were aimed at the Bush administration, the American Military, our foreign policy, yet not with an aim of harming anyone (including "innocents") in reality, but of attacking the policies of our current administration. They do not recognize that we are in an information war and the events in Afghanistan are not "collateral damage" but the inevitable damage which occurs when you give ammunition to murderous fanatics. The fact that the MSM does not appear to recognize that the Islamists are using them as allies should not excuse them of responsibility for their actions. The MSM were apoplectic over Bush's use of the word Crusades. Richard Cohen wrote a scathing article that starts:
I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for this one, it would be "Impeach George Bush."
Cohen continues:
I cite this book ("Fighting for Christendom," Christopher Tyerman ) for a reason. You will remember that early on Bush referred to the war against terrorism as a "crusade." The word, though, was too freighted with Christian-Muslim conflict, and Bush quickly backed down. But, really, he was speaking the truth. Just as the original Crusades were a form of mass madness, so was this one when it was extended to Iraq. It came, as did the original one, out of the bonnet of a leader: Bush....
I assume Cohen will now call for the resignation of Newsweek's editorial board in response to this even more predictably unfortunate mis-use of language... but I won't hold my breath.
The MSM is filled with people who have a great facility with words. They attempt to shape reality by the facile use of words and images, often without attribution and out of context. In an earlier post, Changes: Part IA, a Digression I wrote:
The danger that arises from the media and Hollywood relentlessly hiding images of Islamofascist atrocities, while glossing over the historical reality of Islam's rise at the point of a sword and their current manifestos vowing to do the same to us in the present that was done to infidels in the past, combined with incessant attempts to portray the West as the source of all evil in the world, is that we become mentally disarmed. A portion of our society already has a template of Christians as evil, intolerant, potentially terrorist; contrast that with the nobility of the Minutemen of Michael Moore or the Twelfth century Arabs of Ridley Scott and it appears we have yet another area where we are failing in the information war.
In February, in reaction to Eason Jordan, I wrote a post on The Left's Inadvertent (?) Anti Americanism and made a prediction:
If the left wing bias in our MSM does not self correct and continues to resist the self examination that would illuminate their own biases, our free press will continue to endanger themselves. We are no longer living in a world in which the New York Times, CBS, NBC, and ABC news control what we see and hear. Yet, we still need the MSM; only they have the resources to bring important stories to the majority of the people who do not have the time or the inclination to spend hours a day searching out the news themselves. I would add that our Universities, with their continuing efforts to constrict free speech (always in the name of PC sensitivity and never restricting the language of the left) are furthering endangering our freedoms by their abuse; freedom without responsibility cannot remain free for long.
Until our MSM realize that we are in a real war, a war that involves people killing people because of what they believe, a war between intolerant fascists and our comfortable, liberal, tolerant civilization, they will continue to make such errors, will continue to be marginalized, will continue to lose circulation, and will continue to inadvertently aid our enemies.
The Islamist response to the story also speaks volumes about them and I will be returning to this.
Recent Comments