There has been a lot of noise in the blogosphere around CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan's remarks. In short, he noted “off the record” that U.S. soldiers targeted and killed journalists in Iraq; then retracted the statement while being forced to resign from CNN. 12 journalists were killed by U.S. Forces in Iraq.
Rightist bloggers made a lot of ad hominem attacks on Mr.Jordan, as expected. However, I scanned through hundreds of comments to a post at Little Green Football, and could not find a single poster that would even consider the allegations. And a majority of them are advocating killing journalists that do not agree with the U.S. policies.
I have seen recently Control Room – movie about Al Jazeera news agency during the war in Iraq. A large section is dedicated the killing of an Al Jazeera's correspondent. Here is what happened:
On the same day [April 8th of 2003], American troops fired a rocket on the bureau of Arab news service Al Jazeera, killing correspondent Tareq Ayyoub. Then the staff of another Arab station, Abu Dhabi TV, was attacked in their offices by American artillery. And finally a tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, where most of the unembedded reporters were staying.
Three journalists were killed, and U.S. Forces claimed that all the incidents were justified (e.g. shooting coming from the buildings). But four years earlier, almost to the day, an enemy news agency was an open game. On the night of April 22/23, 1999, a NATO missile hit Serbian TV headquarters killing 16.
So now, my question is, why do so many American bloggers and blog readers think that journalists should be killed if they don't report favorably about the U.S. Military? And why do they think the military or government officials and personnel do not think the same? With the history of some people in the U.S. Government assassinating their own president, installing more rogue regimes than overthrowing, why wouldn't we at least have a doubt?
Posted by laza at February 16, 2005 10:24 PM | TrackBack