Posted on 05/20/2005 9:47:06 AM PDT by CHARLITE
Since my piece on Newsweek’s Quran desecration story, some have suggested that perhaps Newsweek isn’t totally to blame for the violent response in the Middle East. For the record, the opinion I expressed in The Toilets in Cuba Aren’t Better Than Ours was written to address Newsweek’s actions. The fact is I agree that there were other causes of the uprisings in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the land of over-the-top reactions.
Those who are trying to piggy-back the blame for the murderous and reactionary protests sparked by the Newsweek story onto the minor abuses at Abu Ghraib are guilty of the most disingenuous and appalling rewrite of recent history that media activism has ever concocted. A slaying at the hand of a fanatic is an atrocity. Humiliating incarcerated terrorists in an effort to gain information to prevent the deaths of innocents is not.
How an unvetted story published by a mainstream media source suddenly becomes anyone else’s fault but that of the reporters, their editors and the publication that employs them is astounding. Webster’s American Dictionary should start to use – officially – the descriptors “arrogance” and “repugnant” when defining the term “mainstream media.”
There is absolutely no responsibility employed by those who practice media activism. There is no responsibility employed by those in journalism who are lazy in the execution of their jobs, either. Activist journalists who take at face value unsubstantiated evidence because it favors their agenda risk catastrophic consequences. Whether they are hi-jacking public opinion through deception or contributing to the murders of innocents through incompetent reporting, a major portion of the blame rests with the mainstream media.
As negligent as Newsweek and its parent company The Washington Post were in publishing their unsubstantiated rumors, they can only be ascribed with part of the blame. An equal if not larger part of the blame for the 16 deaths and hundreds of injured should be assigned to the people who actually did the killing and the rioting.
While some in the Arab world have been socialized to protest without picking up a Kalashnikov to bolster their low testosterone counts, many have not. Perhaps it’s the heat. Regardless, those wild-eyed reactionaries who take to the streets of Kabul, Tehran and all of the other Middle Eastern locales that literally have constructed their streets to accommodate reoccurring mass demonstrations of illogically justified violent outrage, have the lion’s share of the blood on their hands. Common sense mandates that those who do the killing, maiming and injuring are directly responsible for the deaths, disfigurements and disabilities.
Interesting to note is the fact that Christians all over the world remained calm – albeit outraged – at the reports of Palestinians using bibles for toilet paper when they were holed up in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 2002. Christians around the world, even though they are outraged, refrain from killing one another in protest of the Saudi government’s routine shredding of the Holy Bible.
I wonder how quickly a Westerner’s head would be lopped off if he shredded a Quran or used its pages for wiping their posterior. Something tells me that a deranged saif brandishing simpleton would be dispatched, posthaste.
As long as radical-Islamic fanatics, a.k.a. terrorists, are permitted obdurate contempt for anything or anyone contrary to their beliefs, and as long as the Islamic world community accepts their contempt as unobjectionable, reports such as Newsweek’s faux Quran desecration story will incite catastrophe. Because we understand that the radical-Islamist is simple- minded with all the restraint of a hyper Kindergartener off his Ritalin, the “catalyst” – in this case Newsweek – must always be responsible for the reactions it creates.
Perhaps there is one more element associated with this issue of blame.
Truly disturbing is that no matter how many times the mainstream media purposely publishes inaccurate accounts of events, creates stories, ignores real stories or slants its facts in displays of agenda-driven media activism, the bulk of the American public continues to purchase their publications. As long as there are those who are enticed to gawk at the monstrosity of the tragedy, these merchants of sensationalized disinformation will thrive.
The mainstream media has ceased being about the facts and in its present state exists only to offer the events of the day through the eyes of the agenda-bent and ideological. People are starved for accurate information delivered in good faith. But there is hope.
Today an ever increasing number of Americans are turning away from traditional news outlets and finding alternative sources for their information. Some are calling it the “New Media.” I like to describe it as an evolution back to honest, transparent reporting, true and simple; the epitome of the definition of ‘journalism,’ not the bastardization that is today’s mainstream media.
A message is being sent, and judging by how the mainstream media is circling the wagons around Newsweek and acquiescing to the tantrums of simplistic barbarians, I would suggest that they are hearing our message loud and clear.
Related Reading:
Palestinians used Bible as toilet paper http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44324
Saudis Shred Bibles, Rights Campaigners Claim
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200505/FOR20050519a.html
Frank Salvato is the managing editor of the web journal, The Rant. His columns are regularly featured in The Washington Times, CNS News, GOPUSA and about 50 other publications. Frank welcomes your comments at:
editor@therant.us
Most intelligent folks now regard the MSM on the same level as the Inquirer. They might as well run photos of alien babies or Elvis sightings on their covers.
great story
He forgot the part where the leftist media excuses and enables our enemies. I have yet to see Newsweek apply the same standard of concern for any westerner's Geneva rights at the hands of these terrorist butchers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.