January 06, 2004
Power of the Press
I'm surprised this story didn't get much traction, but apparently the man who blew up the headquarters of HSBC bank in Turkey was motivated by persistant claims in portions of the Turkish press that US soldiers have raped thousands of Iraqi women. I don't blame the war critic, Dr. Susan Block, who wrote a crazy screed called "The Rape of Iraq" in Counterpunch that didn't claim any US soldier actually physically raped an Iraqi woman. No, if you want to print lies and distortions, you'll find a way.
There are plenty of people in this country who believe the harmless lies of our tabloids: that Elvis is still alive, that there is a miracle cure for (arthritis, cancer, lupus, ...), that some lady in Arkansas really did have a baby with space aliens. The problem is when the information stream becomes polluted with stuff that isn't harmless. And we have some of that here -- too many in the press have given up the goal of informing us and instead want to persuade us through the manipulation of facts themselves. Now, we do still have standards, fast eroding though they are, but it should be remembered by the press what they are, the responsibilites they bear, and that critics can criticize for good reasons as well as partisan ones.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at January 6, 2004 01:20 PM | Media Criticism
