The Problem with the "Shield Law and the media's failure to defend it properly
I am watching Republican John McCain navigate right past the heart of the debate on the Shield Law in an appearance at the Associated Press Annual Meeting broadcast live by CNN. I understand the need for journalists to be respectful and to show restraint during interviews, but I also recognize where the line between media restraint and media complicity exists.
McCain says that there needs to be a process that allows judges to evaluate situations where Freedom of the Press crosses the line into National Security. Who would define this line? The judges themselves using guidelines set under the proposed Shield Law. Or, as I argue, professional journalism (if we ever get back there -- addressed below).
Here is an AP story link (appearing on a Conservative Republican Web Page) that details the problems we, as journalists, face.
Here's what McCain basically argued during his live CNN broadcast appearance this morning: The media is changing as a result of the Internet and terrorists like Osama Bin Laden are now using the Internet (and by implication, a new form of "media") to direct his "jihad" against American targets. We have to protect ourselves from that, he said.
It's an argument that hits home with many Americans, and even more with journalists who have been "mentally embedded" by the hate-attacks from the far right conservative political groups and "commentators" (whom I refer to as GOP Jihadists), and by the uneducated American public which understands the terrorist threat but does not understand the more complex source that separates extremist terrorist groups from moderate Arabs and Muslims.
For example, under McCain's theory, Arab American and Muslim American journalists could easily be targeted by prosecution under the broad umbrella of breaching National Security simply for reporting the facts.
The FACT that Bin Laden issues a threat to Americans IS NEWS. His appearance on Middle East, Arab and Muslim World satellite TV IS A NEWS STORY that MUST be reported.
We can't protect Americans by censoring what news is news and what news is not news. It is ridiculous and the decision on censorship falls into political hands both among the government, the politicians, the public and even the very political mainstream American news media.
Journalists who interview Bin Laden and who broadcast those interviews SHOULD BE PROTECTED by the alleged claim of America's dedication to Free Speech and a Free Media. The real protection against terrorism is not government control or gate-keeping. It is not media hesitation in the face of rightwing threats, criticism from an uneducated American public, or fear of being labeled unpatriotic.
It is the facts. It is in being truly free media. Truly non-political media. Truly professional media.
How many Arab and Muslim American journalists will be prosecuted for doing the same job that other journalists are doing because they cover the Middle East conflict more fully, more completely and more professionally than mainstream American media?
Al-Jazeera English has come under intense attack in America because it shows what the American mainstream news media refuses to show: the full truth. The full, ugly truth. The graphic images of how we, as Americans, are tolerating war crimes, abuses, Western terrorism and Western hatred, while hypocritically singling out war crimes, abuses, Middle Eastern and Muslim terrorism and Arab World hatred.
Why is it that not one major national cable system will broadcast al-Jazeera English? Because it supports terrorism, or morelikely, it broadcasts news that Americans don't want to hear. I am amazed at how more open and complete and free journalism is in the Middle East, Israel, the Arab and Muslim World than it is right here in the birthplace of a free and professional journalism profession, America. That I can't even subscribe to al-Jazeera English in America is a serious indictment of how the very fundamentals of freedom that are the foundation of this nation are being compromised.
We need a shield law that allows journalists to report the facts, as ugly and as politically unpopular as they may be. If a terrorist is trying to use the media to organize his or her terrorist campaign, that is not the responsibility of the news media to selectively and subjectively decide when it is or isn't appropriate to censure free speech and professional journalism. It is not the responsibility of government. The responsibility of government is to protect the American people using the most powerful laws and weapons we have against terrorism, and crimes of all sorts: the American Constitution which says we Americans are protected not by manipulation of truth, but by the full venting of truth, the full and complete coverage fo facts, events, issues and everything regardless of the popularity or unpopularity of an issue or event.
Our freedom is what protects us, not attempts to curtail our freedom.
The response of the mainstream media is typical of a changing profession that is shifting away from that fundamental principle of professional journalism towards more managed news. And I understand. The media is taking a crippling financial and economic hit these days as the public shifts from professional news media coverage to the more partisan "reporting" that portrays itself on Cable TV news (like the conservative ansd politically partisan FOX Cable News Channel). More and more Americans want to hear the news that's fits their personal agenda and beliefs, not the facts that are difficult to accept or hard to even understand.
Stand up from journalism. Failing to do is in fact the most effective way to empower the terrorists.
THE MEDIA FAILURE ON TONY REZKO
MEANWHILE ... the gun-shy mainstream media continues to operate in a vacuum, only covering Arab Americans and Muslim Americans when there is a controversy, and ignoring us when there is no controversy. A good example is the failed coverage of the scandal involving Antoin "Tony" Rezko, an Arab American, by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times and the entire Chicagoland media. Rezko was a well-known name in Arab American circles for nearly two decades. The so-called "exclusives" and "breaking news" reports about the scandal, now being detailed -- incompletely I might add -- were well known and visible years before. The Tribune and the Sun-Times had tos cramble to learn who the key players were -- and I am not attacking the reporters who are covering the story today but the policy of their editors who refused to cover Arab American events where Rezko appeared and made speeches in honor of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who urged Arab Americans to donate to Blagojevich, who lobbied other wealthy Arab Americans (only some are identified in the government indictments) and who maintained political action committees that failed to file disclosures but were openly discussed in Arab American circles WHERE NO MAINSTREAM AMERCAN JOURNALISTS WERE PRESENT.
No one is recording the day-to-day events in the Arab American and Muslim American community and therefore when issues surface, the mainstream American media has no place to go to check the facts or learn about the players.
In otherwords, the mainstream media, because of the failed policies of their editors and management, missed the story and are only catching up.
And meanwhile, fanatics in the Arab and Muslim community continue to be showcased by the media as it stumbles to respond to this criticism, prefering to offer the most extremist views while ignoring the more moderate and mainstream Arab and Muslim views to give the false perception that they are doing their jobs.
Their not doing their jobs.
AND A PERSONAL NOTE:
And I can attest to that. Last week, I was dropped from a major newspaper after a national Islamic organization criticized some of my comments. Oh, it was all because of the failing economy and the building economic pressures on the newspaper and had "nothing to do" with the criticism from the Islamic group. But we know that in the worst economic times, one of the first victims in our society is the news media's dedication to free speech. As the economy fails, the first thing the newspapers do is bailout on the most "controversial" (define that as views that are misunderstood by an uneducated American public or stereotyped in the single, monolithic presentation by the mainstream American media -- the media doesn't distinguish between moderate and extremist Arabs and Muslims in America and presents us all one and the same because it's easier to do so.).
But, despite the complaints even against this blog, I will not shut up.
Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com