Posted on 06/23/2004 10:37:49 PM PDT by kattracks
June 24, 2004 -- AFTER terrorists beheaded Korean hostage Kim Sun-il, The New York Times kept the photo showing the horror of his final moments off yesterday's front page. Instead, the Times' front page bizarrely describes Kim as "sitting or kneeling quietly" as he waited to die — in reality the photo, back on Page A-11, shows Kim with his mouth open wide in terror, and the video shows him shaking with fear.It's just the latest instance of how the press often hesitates to show the true savagery of America's enemies in the War on Terror, whether al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein's thugs, precisely because the images are so awful.
Last week, The Post revealed that reporters were ignoring a gruesome video of torture by Saddam's thugs while obsessing over prisoner mistreatment by a small group of U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib jail where the photos are less upsetting.
Calls from readers prompted the American Enterprise Institute to post the Saddam torture video on its Web site (with warnings about the graphic content). Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes" did a report — in fact, last fall Fox exclusively revealed the existence of Saddam torture videos and aired sections.
National Review Online ran a detailed account of the video. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough plans to air it tonight. Otherwise, silence.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The media are our enemies. We need to think of something to do about it.
The video of Saddam's torture here if you are interested in viewing it is hardly ever mentioned, never shown. Yet we have endless coverage of a little abuse by a few of our troops.
I'd love to have a little one on one time with an editor of the New York Times.
"The media are our enemies. We need to think of something to do about it."
You said it! I am so frustrated with the lack of concern on our security. The left has really been imbedded into the sewer of this country. The media is the worst of all. I do consider them traitors as they will cause many of our children and grandchildren killed. Even they are at risk!
What can we do? I know something must be done. No one in the talk show circuit, except for Dr. Savage will call it straight. Our David Driers of Congress will not open their eyes and do the right thing. We do not have ANY patriots in Congress; they are history which isn't being taught by our leftest government school system. Shame, shame, shame....
The New York Times, long ago a great newspaper, has become a laughing stock in denial, like a town drunk that can't or won't get sober, and thinks that nobody knows about his problem.
But unlike a town drunk that we can laugh off as harmless (as long as he stays away from machinery and moving vehicles), an out-of-control newspaper with the gravitas of the New York Times can do incalculable damage trading off its past reputation.
We witnessed this last week as hundreds of newspapers, and TV and radio outlets picked up on the Times' completely untrue story that the 911 Commission had concluded that there was no connection, at all, between Iraq and al Qaida. It's true that they had to backtrack when called on their egregious lie. Cravenly, the Times continues to refuse to retract it's demand that the President apologize for something that is now known to have been the Times' own fiction and fabrication.
This kind of behavior is really of no consequence insofar as it affects the Times' own reputation. Why should we care if they don't care?
But they insult, sully, and slander the reputation of our President and the Nation, and do so in apparent willful, abject, and malicious disregard for the truth.
I know that it is diffucult to make a case for slander when the object of the slander is "public", but in this case, I believe that the acts of the Times (and others) have crossed the line and failure to act against them now will send entirely the wrong message.
They need a serious chastisement, and a lawsuit against them by the People of the United States for malicious slander of the entire nation would be a good place to start.
Lawyers out there, is this a possibilty?
If that does not shut him up; then the 'good Senator' should be arrested for torture himself; because that is what his 'gassing elequently' before a camera has become.
Without concern for truth, decency or honor; he willingly inflicts pain and suffering upon the innocent and he should be held accountable.
And the media who think even a burp from this man should merit primetime; should be held accountable as well.
Freedom of the Press has generally meant that the press is free to print what it pleases without prior restraint.
It has NEVER meant the the press can make up malicious lies and print them with impunity. That's what slander laws are meant to punish.
I think it's about time to get those dusty old books down off the shelf and teach the press that freedom of the press is not the freedom to make up lies with malicious intent and no consequences.
Recent slanders published in the New York Times have been so great and so vicious that they need redressing. As a citizen of the United States, I am one of those slandered, and I have as a result come to have fear for my reputation as an American - and even for my safety - as the lies told about the United States have spread overseas to where I make my living, and where they are believed.
There is too much made of the term "hate speech", but the lies and slanders of the New York Times have generated hate against the United States and its citizens. For this the New York Times must be held accountable.
Down with the "Fourth Estate!" And yes, I am actually serious!
It should be possible (?). . .
If not, then 'why not' a full-page ad; in the NYT's; charging them with the above; naming the agenda-driven, teasonous propaganda they misleadingly refer to as 'news'.
Surely, we could come up with the money for a page. . .
The video has been on the internet for over a week. I saw it several days ago. I also sent FOX an email and told them "we're not children .. the public needs to see this". People really need to see this .. even if it's painful. The reason is .. then people will know the difference between prisoner intimidation by putting panties on someone's head, making them get naked, and TORTURE.
Bit by bit stories like this are creeping out. There should be a flood.
Nothing else need be said.
N.B.
"I don't think the NYT needs to cover the video — but I do think it should make periodic mention of Saddam's torture — which, in fact, I believe it has, and does," [New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent] emailed....
"That's intellectually dishonest, and he knows it," retorts Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who co-hosted an airing of the Saddam torture video on Capitol Hill with Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.).
"There's no question if we had pictures of American soldiers chopping off hands, they would air it. It's just a double standard . . . The idea that if you mention [Saddam's torture] you have somehow checked your box of being fair is ridiculous," he adds.
By contrast he points to "front-page, eye-catching, big headlines that say, 'America bad, America fails.' What is the overall message that's getting out? It's not what's mentioned in paragraph 13 — 'Oh, by the way, Saddam was bad, too.' "
...
"When Ted Kennedy says Abu Ghraib has reopened under 'U.S. management,' the guy hasn't got a clue. It just shows what kind of world of unreality he lives in. His whole agenda is political," Kerik adds.
...
Most of the press still isn't ready to face up to how to report the real horrors of what terrorists do. It would be a good start if newspapers like the Times would admit there's a problem when they downplay those horrors.
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