The Real Power of American Media

The real power the American media was shown over the past week. Newsweek magazine published a story in it's May 9th edition about behavior at Guantanamo Bay. In this report, the authors of the story, Michael Isikoff and John Barry, recounted an event that a "knowledgeable government source" had given them. Because of this report, numerous people throughout the Muslim world have lost their lives, while hundreds of others were hurt, in direct correlation to this article. This yet proves once more how much power our media has.

The report in question claimed that the Muslim holy book, the Quaran, had been defiled in attempts to get Gitmo prisoners to talk. The report outlines a particular instance in which the book was flushed down the toilet in front of Muslims in an attempt to get them to talk. This story helped fuel Muslim retaliation throughout the world as angry Muslim's demanded retribution for the desecration of their holy book. At least 16 were dead in Afghanistan, while scores of others were hurt.

And to make matters worse, it seems the story was a fabrication of the truth. The nearest anyone has been able to come to the report is one in which a Muslim himself tore pages from within the Quaran and flushed them trying to disrupt the flow of the toilet. So how did an act of a Muslim flushing pages turn into military interrogators flushing the entire book?

The truth is the American media cannot wait to find any shred of information to tear down not only the War in Iraq but the President himself. As was seen with CBS, the media will resort to outright lies and fabrications to make their way to the conclusion they so desire. Well this time the price was too high. This time innocent people were killed. This time, the collateral damage to try and bring down the Bush administration was one that could have been avoided. The red letters in Newsweek never held as much symbolism as they do today.

I have long suspected Newsweek and their leftwing bias, but felt that sometimes even they could balance their slant with some of the editorials. But these turn of events have finally pushed me over the edge. Newsweek, take back my subscription! Your stories, your slant, your words mean nothing to me!

But even now, many miss the bigger picture of what is going on. With today's new technology and advancements, news travels the world fast. And the world is reading. They comb over American articles. They beg for information from our states. And the responsibility of not only reporting news, but reporting it correctly weighs heavier now than ever before. It is great that our media feels the freedom to print what they feel, but the days of blindly printing everything that came across their desk is over. There needs to be a rebirth of the days when news was respected. They need to understand that what they write, type, or say is soaked up by international audiences. Many of these people wait for articles like Isikoff 's to demonstrate the evil that is America.

Maybe the chain of events that have followed the printing of the Quaran story will wake up American journalists to their great responsibility. But in the mean time, don't imagine me holding my breath.