Saturday, May 21, 2005

Is the Media Protecting Linda Foley?

I can’t find a thing outside the Blogosphere regarding Linda Foley’s atrocious comments about the US Military since Thursday. Let’s recap:

"It's not just U.S. journalists either, by the way. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity.

Well it turns out that the Newspaper Guild has been spouting this garbage for months. From an April 15th article on their website:

No answers for slain reporters

‘How, after a 35-minute lull in the battle, a tank commanded by Sgt. Shawn Gibson swung its cannon toward the hotel and, 10 minutes later, fired an incendiary shell.’

“The recent attack on the Italian journalist shows yet again that the U.S. military has decided that journalists are fair game in Iraq,”

So the Sgrena incident was cited as an attempt by US soldiers to target journalists. Up to now, I had thought that the nutty Communist journalist and her allies in the Italian media were the only ones subscribing to that theory. I must admit being late on the game, since it appears our own American media was promoting the same theory more than a month ago.

I will also admit that I don’t know a thing about this union. A quick look at the site shows it to be a far left wing organization connected to the AFL-CIO, so it should not be shocking that its leader would make derogatory comments about Bush and the military. Nor does it seem strange that such an organization would post an article accusing America of killing journalists.

The Newspaper Guild represents employees of some major media outlets, all of which are keeping silent on Linda Foley’s comments. What specifically bothers me is that not one word has been published in any major news outlet since the initial story on Thursday. Another case of the media protecting their own?...I’m not sure yet. But I will keep looking.

Imagine if a politician had made those comments. Imagine if anyone of importance outside of the MSM had made those comments. It would be front page news all around. The offender would be run out of town. Let’s think about others that have been destroyed in the media by comments they made. Trent Lott comes to mind.

The local chapter in my area, the The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild , represents some important media outlets including the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and Catholic News Service. I hope the major media outlets in America prove me wrong and highlight their own as they would anyone else.

In Sports:

Nats 0, Blue Jays 7
Nats get blasted in Canada again.

ACC Baseball
Clemson 6, Miami 2
Tigers Complete sweep of #4 Canes.