Posted on 11/07/2001 5:43:05 AM PST by Woodman
One of the largest groups providing aid to the Taliban meets almost every day in a building known to the U.S. military. But it is unlikely Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will order his troops to wipe out the Pentagon press corps, though he must be sorely tempted.
With a handful of exceptions, such as Tom Ricks of The Washington Post and Jamie McIntyre of CNN (a rose in a patch of weeds) most of the journalists covering this war aren’t quite sure from which end of the rifle the round comes.
Consider the genius who at a press briefing suggested to Rumsfeld that he drop leaflets in advance of an air strike to warn people that a strike was imminent. A dumbfounded Rumsfeld was speechless for several seconds as he formulated a reply.
Many of the Questions are not merely stupid. They are dangerous. Every day, someone asks something about current movements of U.S. forces. This is information Americans don’t need to know, and it is information that could get American soldiers killed if it were divulged.
The Washington Post and other media organs reported that the Rangers were conducting a raid near Kandahar while the troops were still on the ground in Afghanistan. Col. David Hackworth, the most decorated American soldier in Vietnam, noted that if journalists had done such a thing during WWII, they’d have been sent to prison. He laments the end of this practice.
The War in Afghanistan so far has been grossly misreported. The talking heads told us everyday for weeks that the Taliban was being “pounded” by “the heaviest air strikes yet,” when in fact this was not the case. We were flying less than a hundred fighter-bomber sorties per day, far less than during the early stages of the Kosovo war, when our bombing was spectacularly ineffective.
Now that the B-52s have been brought into action, we actually are “pounding” Taliban positions with ”heavy” air strikes, but the teltwits have run out of superlatives to describe it.
Print journalists have done their bit to screw up simple facts, the New York Times styles itself as “America’s newspaper of record.” Yet the Times has written about “Air Force” F-18s (only the Navy and Marine Corps fly the plane) and has speculated that 5000 lb. “bunker buster” bombs were delivered by B-1 or B2 bombers. (The bomb is too long to fit in the bomb bay of either aircraft, neither of which is configured to carry external ordinance.)
More aggravating than the ignorance of journalists is their arrogance. Many consider themselves to be neutrals in America’s struggle for survival. Loren Jenkens, senior foreign editor of National Public Radio, has told his reporters to report the location of U.S. troops as soon as they find out where they are.
“I don’t represent the government,” Jenkins said, when asked about the possible harm this policy might do to U.S. troops, “I represent history.”
ABC and CNN have been conduits for enemy propaganda. When Islamic terrorists massacred 16 Parishioners at a Christian church in central Pakistan, ABC made no mention of it. But there was room in ABCs newscast that day for a Taliban-vetted report on two Afghan civilians killed by U.S. bombings. ABC reporter Dan Harris conceded he’d been invited to Afghanistan because the Taliban saw his reports “as an enormous boon to them.” “As we get good reports from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, we must redouble our efforts to make sure we do not seem to be simply reporting from their vantage or perspective,” CNN chief Walter Isaacson had to remind his newsies.
“The public understands our nation is at war, and they can’t understand why the media don’t,” said Mike Wendland of the Detroit Free Press. Why there is such a disconnect between journalists and the people they purport to serve is a question is a question journalists should be asking them selves, but aren’t.
mailto: jkelly@post-gazzette.com
Mr. Jenkins,
Does the word "treason" mean anything to you?
A dumbfounded Rumsfeld was speechless for several seconds as he formulated a reply. Typical thought by a J-school college graduate...
In this 24/7 news cycle Paul Revere's midnight ride warning ' The British are coming , the British are coming! would instead be-on the leaflets proposed.-"The Americans are coming, the Americans are coming!
Has anyone seen a definitive article on when "the line" of freedom of speech/press is crossed?
For instance, the Islamic professor at U of South Florida; when he called for "death to America". Isn't this a treasonous statement? Could he be considered a "threat to national security" and "taken out"?
Isn't this a clear example of a "threat to our national security" (in the form of American soldiers)?
Why is this person alive still? At minimum, why are they employed, most particularly by NPR?
This absolutely boggles my mind.
An article in the Los Angeles Times notes that American journalism did not have the free access to Allied missions during World War II that some have claimed. Indeed, according to Robert Lichter and Trevor Butterworth of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, World War II reporters had to join the armed forces and wear uniforms in order to be accredited, and many actually trained with the troops. Their reports were subject to censorship.
And during the Korean War, where there was no censorship at first, reporters inadvertently revealed so much sensitive information that they actually pleaded with General Douglas Macarthur to impose censorship, and supported the decision when he did.
My, how times have changed!
It's a taxpayer financed enemy propaganda forum.
They wouldn't last five seconds if they had to be self-supporting.
So what's it going to be? Is the liberal media ignorant, stupid and incompetant or are they putting troops at risk? You can't have it both ways. If all they're doing is pumping out a confusing mish-mash of spin and BS, they can't very well be putting troops at risk. Nor does asking stupid questions at a press conference put troops at risk. The only people who can put troops at risk are the military people who are actually in a position to know what's going on. Sorry, but you can't pin this on the liberal media.
This is so true! Just a sidenote -- Tom Ricks was one of the few journalists and I say that word "journalist" with respect to follow up on the military not getting their ballots counted in Florida last year and then wrote a story for the Washington Post that had interviews with people that did not have their ballots counted!
"I don't represent the government. I just get paid by it."
Another good argument for defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Well I didn't title the editorial, but you happen to be right. What is well stated in it is that "Liberal Lips [WOULD] put troops at risk" if they had the information to do it.
Chalk one up for Rummy and company for protecting the Troops from the media as well as the other enemy.
Unless were field a ground force capable of restricting movement of the Taliban, the only way to achieve our goals by bombing it to kill as many as possible. Hence pre-warning anyone (even innocent civilians) would prolong the conflict and risk more lives in the long run.
Unless, of course, we lie and drop the bombs early. ;)
Is there a particular committee that is in charge of decision making when it comes to NPR?
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