STILL MORE From Our Near-criminal Media

By Marilyn M. Brannan, Associate Editor
Unravelling The New World Order

This past February, we published at this website an article entitled, “Near-Criminal Media.” The article dealt with the ways in which much of the mainstream media has virtually abandoned once-held standards of journalistic honesty and objectivity. In an alarming number of cases, mainstream news organizations are shamelessly promoting their versions of so-called “news” that is little more than propaganda calculated to undermine traditional American values, discredit our culture and our system of self-government, and do damage to our current war effort.

One has to wonder whether this mockery of journalism in our mainstream media is a calculated thing—a conspiracy of lies borne of hatred and/or desperation—or whether it is simply the result of incompetence and stupidity.

We could start with Dan Rather. At the eleventh hour of an election year, CBS—via anchorman Rather—unleashed their fraudulent story about George W. Bush’s military service—a story which, had it been true and not a fabrication based on counterfeit documents, could have cost the President his re-election.

Aren’t there penalties for fraudulent actions undertaken to affect the outcome of a national election?

CNN’s Claim of Murdered Journalists

Then, in January, there were the outrageous comments made by CNN news executive Eason Jordan while he was participating in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During that panel discussion, Jordan initially stated—before he tried to take back his words—that U.S. troops had deliberately targeted and killed 12 journalists in Iraq.

It wasn’t Jordan’s first calumnious attack on U.S. military. In November 2004, Jordan stated to a group of Portuguese journalists, “ [A]t least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true, journalists have been arrested and tortured by U.S. forces.” Jordan did not name any witnesses or offer any evidence of these alleged war crimes in Iraq or anywhere else. On Friday, February 11, Jordan abruptly resigned from CNN, claiming that his remarks had been “misrepresented.”

Shouldn’t there be penalties for this kind of irresponsible reporting--especially when it concerns the safety of our military personnel?

 Media Love Affair with “Right to Die”

Just weeks after the Jordan incident, the mainstream media engaged itself politically in the Terri Schiavo case, promoting what they euphemistically called the “right to die,” but which plainly amounts to involuntary euthanasia.

Soon after Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed on March 18 to comply with a court order that virtually mandated her death by starvation, ABC News claimed that their polling had provided evidence of strong public support for removing Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube.

Many Americans were skeptical about the ABC poll and its “findings.” A few days after Terri Schiavo’s death, a credible polling organization revealed that Americans did not favor the heartless removal of the woman’s feeding tube, as the ABC polls had attempted to show.

Poll numbers released by Zogby on April 6, 2005* showed that, by a three-to-one margin, likely voters believe when there is conflicting evidence on the wishes of a patient, elected officials should order that a feeding tube remain in place.  Further, those polled said (by a two-to-one margin) that an incapacitated person should be presumed to want to live in the absence of written instructions such as a living will.  However, these expressed beliefs among a large cross section of the American people did not fit with the death culture philosophy of mainstream media organizations, and their views were simply ignored in much of the reporting on the Schiavo case.

The public did not hear the truth until it was too late. For Terri Schiavo, journalistic integrity might have made the difference between life and death. But our near-criminal media, with their Kevorkian, death-wish mentality, were determined to program America to accept Terri Schiavo’s death as a necessary solution to an inconvenient “problem.”

Our Declaration of Independence states our Founding Fathers’ beliefs that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights . . . and that among them is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Further, the 14th Amendment states that “No state shall . . . abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

It is an outrage that in America, powerful media organizations would stoop to abuse their free-speech liberties under the First Amendment to influence public opinion against an innocent, helpless woman who depended on our laws and our Constitution to protect her life!

Newsweek’s “Toilet Fiasco”

The latest in this series of disgusting media exploits (only partially reported here due to space limitations) is the unsubstantiated story of alleged desecration of the Koran by American military. An article published in Newsweek’s May 9 edition claimed that U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators at the military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet in an effort to get inmates to talk.

The article incited violent anti-American demonstrations in several Afghan cities, with an estimated 17 people killed and at least 100 others injured in clashes with security forces, and a string of government and relief organization offices ransacked by angry Muslims.

Officials in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department lambasted Newsweek for its irresponsible and unsubstantiated story, attributed by the magazine to an “anonymous” government source.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan stated, “The report had real consequences. People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone.”

Newsweek has now retracted its report. In its apology and retraction, the magazine said the unnamed official had later confided that he was no longer certain of the information he had provided and that it could no longer stand by its claim that an internal military investigation had verified the act of desecration (New York Times, May 17, 2005).

One of the authors of the article, Michael Isikoff, offered to resign in the wake of the furor, but Newsweek declined to accept his resignation and characterized the egregious reporting as “just a mistake that was made in good faith.”

Afghan presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin laid blame for the violence squarely at the feet of Newsweek magazine in a statement on May 17. He said, “Newsweek can be held responsible for the damages caused by their story.”

Aren’t there penalties for inciting violence? And isn’t this exactly what the Newsweek story did?

The Role of Media in a Free Society

“The media have a history of testing the resiliency of the free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment by challenging any attempts to restrict their coverage of politics and society, and by arguing passionately that the ‘public has a right to know.’ This is as it should be, since a free press—even one that occasionally exceeds bounds of good taste—is essential to the preservation of a democratic society.” (John W. Johnson, “Democracy Papers: The Role of a Free Media,” published at www.usinfo.state.gov by International Information Programs)

Taste is one thing. Responsibility is another. Even our American courts, which have tended to grant progressively more freedom to the media, have not invariably supported complete freedom of expression.

Many in the mainstream media have abdicated their responsibility to govern themselves in a responsible manner. While we recognize that a free press is critically important to the workings of a free society, there is such a thing as too much freedom of the press, as demonstrated by recent actions by out-of-control media organizations.

Ultimately, the best balancing mechanism between license and liberty in matters of freedom of the press can be summed up in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:

“[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market. . . . That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution.”

Fortunately, as members of a free society we have choices; we can cancel subscriptions, we can change channels, we can air our views on websites and in letters to editors. These are levers that we can use in the marketplace, and they have proven to be effective.

In cases where dishonest and/or irresponsible reporting result in destruction and even death, write to your representatives in Congress and urge them to take action. Use your activist connections, if any, to effect change. Remember: We are not helpless, and this is still America.

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*Survey by Zogby International on behalf of the Christian Defense Coalition, March 30 to April 2, 2005.