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.
News to me, I think these guys should get the max, In a war zone thats about a 40 cent bullet.
this was the pictures of the dead american soldiers that sludge showed on his front page?
Who knew they'd actually take up arms against us???
"that's not what it says" ???
Read again .. maybe it wasn't verbatim but it said the same:
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
they knew about it, they were there BEFORE the explosion, they witnessed the entire episode - and NEVER WARNED THE AMERICAN TROOPS
They should have shot the bastards because they ARE ENEMY COMBATANTS!
I'm sure we are protecting them for PC reasons. It stinks. AND you know D***** well they knew it was to blow up soldiers even though they never said so/
Well, my first thought is this has to be Al Jazeera.
As much as the western media would love to get close to the terrorists - they don't trust the western media, AFAICT.
I'm reminded of all the nice pictures reuters took of the five 1st Cav casualties of last Friday's bombing.
Sounds to me like they need to round up the "jounalists" from Al Jazeera and use them to clear mine fields.
No. The CENTCOM release says exactly what happened. THe journalists got a note to go somewhere and that's it. No other info was given. The bomb went off after they showed up. The title and claims are more than misleading, they are a lie.
....sometime ago...A NY judge ruled "Journalism" has NO cliam as a profession....b/c, It has no ethics.
Not that I dare question the media's patriotism, but this smacks of aiding and abetting the enemy.
Be they Al Jazeera or anyone else, they simply out to be tried and shot. Then blame it on Bush. The American people will give him CREDIT if any news org. wants to make a stink about it.
Blog request John.
If someone got a call like that I pray they have the sense to give the military/police etc a warning. Anything less is totally irresponsible.
The report is useless unless the organization the so-called journalist and the two cameramen work for is named.
International law holds that the media is an independent agent and is not to be used as a covert intel source.
Either they are working with the terrorists or they are terrorists... for or against us. Just proof of what several of us have been saying for a while. Long time since we should have blown Al Jazzy and the other one to kingdom come.
Right. Figure out how they knew what was going to happen before it did. " 1... they knew about the attack before it happened"
They had no knowledge an attack was going to take place. "2... they arrived before the attack
They had no knowledge an attack was going to take place.
"3... they watched the attack
They had no prior knowledge of what they saw.
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