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.
tell that to CENTCOM
tHIS IS NOT A blog.
wHY IS EVERYTHING BEING PUT IN blogs??
this is news!!
How do they know who the call came from? How do they know they weren't going to be kidnapped?
"This is like saying that if someone called the NYT's from Afghanistan telling them to go to the WTC with a camera,"
So, what could they do to know what was going to happen, seek out a psychic?
"the NYT could not pass on the call because it could be considered covert intel."
They can do whatever they want. They have their considerations and will make their own decisions with what they have to go on. They are abliged to do nothing and the govm't is abliged to stay out of their decisions and allow them to make them w/o, requirement of notification, or sanction.
Even more than lawyers?
Just red, thanks.
Put them up against the wall and shoot them...they are the enemy!
This makes me so angry I could spit right in their faces!!
Thank you Race for posting that.
Excellently written, and as I suspected.
Anyone know which journalists, as far as nationality, media company or whatever?
It sounds like the same thing, the first was just more luridly expressed. How is it not what you quoted?
you must be one hell of a leftist propagandist and/or a lawyer!! Common sense and facts have no bearing on what the meaning of the word"IS" is.
You aren't from Hot Springs perchance are you?
They were jealous because Al Jazeera journalists got tips on where to go and when, and then got all the dead American/mutilated bodies scoops. Hopefully, Reuters and AP, etc. will come to their senses. Maybe the BBC already has.
What international law is that and why should American journalists or soldiers give a flying f**k about it even if it is an international law?
What I can't understand is why you seem to think that it's an ok thing for journalists to receive a "tip" that "something" is going to "happen" and give no warning to the US military.
My post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1150040/posts?page=33#33 was to JohnHuang. He is a political editorialist. I was requesting he use this story for a blog.
His editorials attracts a very large reader base.
See if you can find that the journalists had prior knowledge of an attack and could guess the details of that attack in the CENTCOM note. The CENTCOM note says that they had essentially nothing. Under the Geneva Conventions journalists are considered civilians not taking part in hostilities. Their independence has a value well recognized by the US and others, the particulars of any bias notwithstanding.
Prove to me they didn't.
The CENT COM report was brief and obviously said less than they knew. So we can't know many details. But it's obvious that the journalists knew "something" would "happen" which wouldn't be a good thing for the US military.
So, IF they said nothing to warn the US military (which is what is sounds like) then they were accessories to assisting the enemy.
No more protection for them, then. And also use these media people as a warning, when you see reporters - go around and avoid the trap. Perhaps the enemy will get so frustrated that it will nab our dear journalists so THEY may experience "dipolmacy" as meted out by our enemy. It would do them good.
LATEST PARABLE FROM IRAQ:
Two US Marines are listening to the radio in Iraq.
"American soldiers," coos a soft female voice,
"Your so-called national leaders have lied to you.
You are needlessly risking your lives to wage
a useless, unjust, illegal, and unwinnable war. Now is the time to return home to your loved ones, while you are still alive.
If you foolishly insist on remaining where you are not wanted, the brave resistance fighters will have no choice but to kill you and add your name to the long ever-increasing casualty list of this insane war.
So why risk never seeing your loved ones again for a so-called president who has repeatedly lied and deceived you at every opportunity? Why should you be sacrificed so that US corporations can enjoy fatter profits?
The only wise thing to do is return home now, while you are
still drawing breath, before you return zippered into a bodybag."
"What's this?" sneers one Marine. "An Islamo-terrorist version of Tokyo Rose?"
"No," answers the other. "It's just CNN !
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