Posted on 06/08/2004 3:02:43 PM PDT by RaceBannon
News media gets tip of a roadside bomb and sets up cameras to film US soldiers being blown up when it went off.
http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20040609.txt
NEWS RELEASE
HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 June 3, 2004 Release Number: 04-06-09
============================================= For additional information on the story see also:
From Palace Of Reason
http://www.palaceofreason.com/Curmudgeon/curmudgeon.html
then select "Firing 'Em Up" from the left menu):
Fran's Sunday Follies, A Saturday Edition: Firing 'Em Up
June 5, 2004
Either I've been teleported interdimensionally to a world where black is white, Kirk is evil, and Spock wears a beard, or a significant occupational group has declared its colors, and they're not red, white, and blue:
COALITION SOLDIERS QUESTION NEWS MEDIA FOLLOWING ROADSIDE BOMB
MOSUL, Iraq - Coalition soldiers questioned two news media cameramen and a reporter after a roadside bomb exploded near a Coalition convoy two kilometers north of Mosul June 3.
The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion.
There was minimal damage to a Coalition vehicle, a cracked windshield, and no serious injuries.
3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers requested the media accompany them to a base camp in Mosul to answer questions as witnesses to the incident. The news media representatives left the base camp in the mid afternoon. [from CENTCOM's June 3 news release. Reference courtesy of Sarah at Trying To Grok.]
This is not the habitual behavior of so-called "journalists." If precedent holds, it will not get a lot of play in the Old Media. It's up to us of the New Media to spread it as far as we possibly can.
Imagine yourself in the situation described. Imagine receiving a tip, from a source you had some reason to believe, that an explosive ambush had been prepared in a particular place, and that lives were at hazard as a result. What would you do? Without reference to the identities of the bombers, their probable victims, or any other element of the tableau: what would you do?
Wouldn't elementary human decency oblige you to tell whoever might be able to avert the atrocity, and urge him to check it out? Wouldn't that be compulsory for anyone with a shred of regard for human life?
Had the above incident happened in any part of these United States, the "journalists" would be indictable as accessories before the fact to attempted murder. What will happen to them in consequence of events as reported from Iraq is anyone's guess. Mine is that they'll step away unscathed, legally and occupationally.
Legal questions to the side, how can a decent man, whatever his nationality or trade, merely watch as others hurtle into deadly peril -- a peril of which the observer could have forewarned him? What price "objectivity," "impartiality," or any other euphemism for this sort of callousness?
Will their "journalist" brethren remonstrate with them for having watched in silence? Not if recent interviews with high-line "reporters" like Mike Wallace are any indication. More likely, the Mosul miscreants will be patted on the back and lauded for having upheld the "standards" of the "profession."
Which brings me to another bit of spleen tokage: "journalists'" self-attribution of "professionalism." If there's a word in the English language that's been abused worse, I'm unaware of it -- and I'm the dictator verborum for the New York Metropolitan area.
A professional is emphatically not just a white-collar employee who draws a salary instead of an hourly wage. A professional is emphatically not just a tradesman who takes his work seriously. A professional is one who professes a code of ethics that takes precedence over his own interests. Medicine, law, and the clergy, the trades traditionally called professions, all conform to that stricture. Persons in each of those trades must swear before witnesses to a code of ethical conduct that obliges them to lay down their own lives rather than break its rules.
"Journalists," while claiming exemption from any ethical standard whatsoever in the name of "objectivity," nonetheless call themselves "professionals." The word is infinitely too good for them. Given the way they routinely deceive, distort, and suppress vital news when it suits their editorial agendas or political proclivities to do so, they aren't even honest workmen.
Some will say that "journalists" do uphold a standard of sorts: "protecting their sources." Please! That isn't an ethically based constraint; it's an attempt to retain a competitive edge over other "journalists" who don't have access to the source, and to protect the source from the consequences of any lies he might utter. It's so selfish a precept that it defies comparison to any notion ever advanced as moral or ethical.
In the name of "protecting their sources, "journalists" have spread the foulest of calumnies, ruining lives and reputations wholesale. Now, in the name of "objectivity," they're allowing other men -- American soldiers, who volunteered to take up arms and risk death in service to their country! -- to walk into harm's way unawares. They sit and watch, with cameras rolling, as the crosshairs of Islamist insurgents and terrorists settle on the chests of American men at arms.
People think lawyers are a plague upon the land. At least lawyers, though they might leave you broke, will leave you your life.
Who is teaching "journalists" that this is acceptable behavior? Is it their older mentors and role models? Is it the journalism schools and professors of communications? Or is it We The People, by consuming their product in blissful disregard for the poisons in the recipe?
Shame on them. Shame on all of us.
If this is the way "journalists" regard their occupational obligations and perquisites, they're as dangerous to our men at arms as the weapons of the enemy, and should be treated as such.
give em a hot tip about some incoming friendly fire arriving in 3...2....1...
It is true. I saw it on GoGov.com three days ago. May still be there.
I am almost surprised this is still news...
I am almost surprised this is still news...
Ok, which organization where the journalists members of?
I'm sure the media also celebrated and cheered.
That is so frikkin over the damned line! they need to be arrested and treated as ununiformed enemy combatants... and SHOT!
This is called being an accessory to murder.
In a war zone, they are then the enemy.
SHOOT the bastards and stick a gun in theri cold dead hands.
It would be much nicer if you could just gut shoot them and cut their tongues out so they can't talk as they slowly die.
Big shocker.
Who are they?
Was there ever any indication of who these journalists were working for? I expect this sort of thing from the arab media but if it were a western or American media outlet I would hope that more will be done than questioning of reporters.
That's not what it says at CENTCOM and that's not what happened.
From CENTCOM:
June 3, 2004
Release Number: 04-06-09
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COALITION SOLDIERS QUESTION NEWS MEDIA FOLLOWING ROADSIDE
BOMB MOSUL, Iraq - Coalition soldiers questioned two news media cameramen and a reporter after a roadside bomb exploded near a Coalition convoy two kilometers north of Mosul June 3.
The media, who were at the scene prior to the attack, told soldiers at the scene they had received a tip to be at that location prior to the attack and they had witnessed the explosion.
There was minimal damage to a Coalition vehicle, a cracked windshield, and no serious injuries.
3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers requested the media accompany them to a base camp in Mosul to answer questions as witnesses to the incident. The news media representatives left the base camp in the mid afternoon."
This won't get reported on the mainstream news.
The Pentagon and Department of Defense should hold a major news conference, something big enough the alphabet new will HAVE to film it, and tell the people about this.
Man, I hate the media with a passion.
That was my first question when this came out last week.
The dispatch does not include that information, and I haven't seen anything since that identifies the "news media cameramen".
I wonder why?
They are worse than the terrorists.
I hope they are brought up on charges of treason and shot by firing squad.
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