CAPTURING THE WORLD’S IMAGINATION? MARILYN PENN
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8639/pub_detail.asp
Capturing the World’s Imagination?
Marilyn Penn
As he signed the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act authorizing the State Dept to include information about attacks on journalists in its human rights reports, President Obama referred to Pearl’s beheading as a “moment that captured the world’s imagination by reminding us of how valuable a free press is.”
That shockingly phrased statement should remind us that the freedom that martyred Pearl allowed Al Jazeera to broadcast his barbaric decapitation by justifying it as news. In this Sunday’s Times, a full page ad appears promoting the availability of Al Jazeera English online. It features the following endorsements: “It Is Al Jazeera’s Moment,” NY Times; “Thank You for What You’re Doing” Sam Donaldson; “Great Reporting. Al Jazeera Has Been An Absolute Lifeline For The Rest of the World in Understanding What Is Going On.” Rachel Maddow; “Most Comprehensive Coverage of Any Network In Any Language Hands Down.” The Nation.
Al Jazeera was certainly no lifeline for Daniel Pearl or any of the other victims of beheadings and executions flaunted at the public by this feeder of Islamic frenzy. And the journalists quoted above cannot be excused by Americans who comprehended and abhorred the torture, humiliation and murder of a gifted American/Jewish journalist. Can anyone imagine firemen, policemen or servicemen so betraying one of their own, killed in the line of duty? Are journalists so ethically challenged and so oblivious to the respect owed a member of their own clan that they can praise the Islamic news service that fanned the flames of Islamic hatred to torture and kill innocent civilians?
A telling example of Al Jazeera’s objectivity as a news service took place in 2008 in Beirut when it covered the release of a Lebanese terrorist from an Israeli prison where he had served time for murdering several Israelis. The bureau chief of the Beirut office hailed the returning terrorist as a pan-Arab hero and organized a birthday party in his honor. He was subsequently chastised by Al Jazeera’s director general, a move reminiscent of a judge instructing a jury to disregard inflammatory and prejudicial testimony after they have heard it.
Al Jazeera is owned by the Sheik of Qatar and doesn’t broadcast anything critical of the Qatari government. Is this a news service worthy of the encomiums of our eminent people of the press and media? The New York Times can praise Al Jazeera despite its broadcast of Pearl’s execution while hypocritically refusing to publish in its own paper any of the cartoons of Mohammed that inflamed the sensibilities of radical Islamists. Showing the beheading of an American reporter apparently did not qualify as sufficient to earn the censure of the Times management; instead, it chose to be the lead endorser for Al Jazeera , running the ad in its own paper.
As consumers of the news, let’s remember who signed on to this and use this knowledge as a litmus test for judging which reporters, magazines and newspapers share the values of western civilization upon which this country was founded. Freedom of the press was never intended as a tool to glorify murder and use it as a rallying cry for religious terrorists ecstatically praising Allah as they raise their scimitars. A network that would do this is operating outside the boundaries of our morality. The western press that tolerates behavior in others that we do not subscribe to ourselves, that welcomes them into the fraternity of our news providers, that endorses them despite the horrifying consequences of their acts – has lost its moorings and all semblance of decency.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Marilyn Penn is a writer in New York who can also be read regularly at Politicalmavens.com.
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