Terrorist Attacks: Media Judgement Coming Faster Than Facts
Belief:
What if People Actually Treated Religion as Just a Metaphor (Like Trekkies and Secular Jews)?
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
David DeGraw
DrugReporter:
When It’s Crunch Time at College, Students Turn to Adderall
Erik Hayden
Environment:
20 Weird, Crazy Ideas for Helping the Earth
Food:
The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare
Tara Lohan
Health and Wellness:
Pharmaceutical Giant Paid $500,000 to Psychiatrist Who Used Chicago's Poor as Guinea Pigs
Christina Jewett and Sam Roe
Immigration:
Dobbs' Resignation Was Long Overdue
Janet Murguía
Media and Technology:
Is Right-Wing Media Hustler Trying to "Blackmail" Obama's Attorney General over ACORN Videos?
David Edwards, Muriel Kane
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
New Right-Wing Craze: Using Bible Quote to Pray That Obama’s 'Days Be Few'
Amanda Terkel
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Hey Guys, Don't Want Kids? A Vascetomy Is Probably the Way to Go
Anna Clark
Rights and Liberties:
Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses
Nick Turse
Sex and Relationships:
How Abstinence-Only Programs Perpetuate Dangerous Stereotypes
Martha Kempner
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Army Sends Mom to Afghanistan, Infant to Protective Services
Dahr Jamail
NEW YORK -- The smoke is heading my way in lower Manhattan. I can see it. And I can no longer see either of the World Trade Towers that were clearly visible from my block as I walked home last night.
That's about all I can tell you about this morning's attack in New York. In CNN's News Center in Atlanta, they know even less, but that isn't stopping their talk.
Two hours after attacks on two U.S. cities, it's not clear how the coverage will develop. There's no question, however, that TV speakers will be filling the rest of the day with talk about an event that none of them can explain. As the hours progress, "experts" will no doubt be interviewed. Greta Van Sustern was already asked for her analysis. CNN's legal expert talked from her vantage point at Washington's National Airport.
We can't predict the coverage, but we can recall the past. Here, thanks to our friends at FAIR, from 1995:
"Seldom have so many been so wrong -- so quickly. In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed -- almost en masse -- to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. "The betting here is on Middle East terrorists," declared CBS News' Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). "The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East," ABC's John McQuethy proclaimed the same day.
"`It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,' wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). "Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working," declared the New York Times' A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen."
There's been a tragedy. May all of us in the media not add to it today.
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| More News and Analysis: | ||
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15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far? By David DeGraw, Amped Status. November 21, 2009. |
Naomi Klein: 'No Logo' Revisited In the new introduction to the re-release of her classic book, 'No Logo,' Klein explores how ad culture has thrived and adapted in the past decade. By Naomi Klein, Picador Press. November 21, 2009. |
Is Right-Wing Media Hustler Trying to "Blackmail" Obama's Attorney General over ACORN Videos? Media and Technology: Andew Breitbart appears to be threatening to release more ACORN smear videos to avoid a serious DOJ investigation. By David Edwards, Muriel Kane, Raw Story. November 21, 2009. |
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