Will the US Media Please Stand Up?

Jane Novak

Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) is continuing to spread at an epidemic rate through the US media. The syndrome is characterized by blindness to anything other than US transgressions, paranoia regarding the US government, delusions of conspiracy, and a feverish hostility toward President Bush.

Like the common cold, the famous and powerful are not immune. Dan Rather was stricken and succumbed to the lure of forged documents. Walter Cronkite was caught babbling that Karl Rove "set up" Usama's last tape. Now Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, is displaying symptoms.

Eason-gate (or Eason-a-Quiddick depending on your inclination) is being touted as the newest benchmark in the developing relationship between the media and their new watchdogs, the bloggers.

Bloggers have been described as an army of "digital brownshirts" by Al Gore, "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing" by Jonathan Klein, a former CBS News executive, and recently, as the "sons of McCarthy" by Bertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors Forum.

Eason Jordan resigned his post amid a blogging furor that began when he stated at a recent discussion panel in Davos, Switzerland that US soldiers had targeted and killed a dozen journalists in Iraq.

Democrats Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, who were both in the room, challenged Jordan who was unable to provide any proof. Despite requests, the videotape of his statements has not been released.

The right leaning bloggers have piled on Jordan and CNN, accusing them of turning a blind eye to the realities of the Middle East and an evil eye on the US.

The US media has piled on the bloggers. In their typical, self-absorbed, Amero-centric way, these pundits have focused on what Eason's resignation means for them, for American journalism, and for CNN.

In a nearly unanimous fashion, US media hot shots have failed to note that their colleagues in Iraq are indeed deliberately targeted, kidnapped, and murdered-by the "insurgents."

Abdel Hussein Khazaal, a correspondent for the US backed Al-Hurra television station, was shot dead in Basra on February 9th. His three-year-old son, who was with him, was also killed in cold blood. Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) has noted that "Khazaal was targeted because he worked for a US television station."

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirms that "insurgent groups have frequently targeted journalists and media workers (in Iraq) in reprisal for their work…" Around the world, daily, journalists are targeted for their profession of exposing hidden truths.

In 2004, seventy-one journalists were murdered, in 2003 fifty-three, in 2002 forty-six. Only when the allegation is that the US is doing the targeting does the US media lift its sleeping head.

According to the World Association of Newspaper Editors (WAN) 130 journalists are currently in prison around the world. At least somebody is counting them, but these journalists and editors have no vocal advocates among the powerful and free American talking heads.

Some organizations, like WAN, provide important training, prizes, publications, legal advice, and scholarships for developing media. International organizations like CPJ and RSF regularly send protest letters. But the big boys with their big bats and big voices are missing from the fight.

New York Times weekly columnists Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, and Paul Krugman have a world audience but no time for anything but Bush bashing. Do they understand that speaking the names of these 130 may keep the prisoners alive, get them released, diminish their literal torture, or increase their food rations?

Their atrocities can only continue in the darkness of obscurity. American media titans have the power to shine the light into the prison cells, but they don't.

Is it impolitic, not PC, to advocate for victims of repression? That used to be a liberal thing. Are they expecting the journalists in the censored media to break the story?

These are their colleagues, other journalists after all. Is there no loyalty, no outrage, no dedication to the concept of a free press? Apparently not enough to speak 130 names.

Editors and journalists are censored, imprisoned and murdered in the regimes that are the most cancerous and dysfunctional. It’s a story that would serve the American public as well.

A study in oblivion, the stars of American media ignore the blood of their brothers and instead, in big offices and on comfy chairs, they focus their ire on the guys in pajamas. Bush Derangement Syndrome has taken its hold.

As penance for Eason Jordan's transgression, CNN should have Wolf Blitzer do a daily segment on currently imprisoned journalists. The series would run out of faces to show by July.


Jane Novak is an oped columnist regularly published in the Middle East, South Asia and the Gulf. She maintains the blog armiesofliberation.com



Works Cited




Murder of Iraqi journalist: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/64375/

CPJ statement http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/64407

Cyber McCarthyism: http://www.editorsweblog.org/2005/02/cnn_executive_o.html

Gore digital brownshirts: http://www.acslaw.org/pdf/gore6-24.pdf

Klein quote: http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005611

RSF statement: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/64375

WAN: stats killed: http://www.wan-press.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=1

WAN: stats imprisoned: http://www.wan-press.org/article5683.html?var_recherche=journalists+imprisoned

Cronkite: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13357_Cronkite-_Karl_Rove_Behind_Bin_Laden_Tape