Article by Bennett and Dershowitz
Found this article this morning:
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San Diego Union-TribuneFebruary 24, 2006
This Time, The Press Failed The Public
By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz
There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and courageous reporters are many within the press corps. Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan in the 1960s were litigated so that the press could report on and examine public officials with the unfettered reporting a free people deserved. In the 1970s the Pentagon Papers case reaffirmed the proposition that issues of public importance were fully protected by the First Amendment.
The mass media that backed the plaintiffs in these cases understood that not only did a free press have a right to report on critical issues and people of the day but that citizens had a right to know about those issues and people. The mass media understood another thing: They had more than a right; they had a duty to report.
We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities. To our knowledge, only three print newspapers have followed their true calling: The Austin American-Statesman, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Sun. What have they done? They simply printed cartoons that were at the center of widespread turmoil among Muslims over depictions of the prophet Muhammad. These newspapers did their duty.
Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts. The manifold images of abuse at Abu Ghraib come to mind – images that struck at our effort to win support from Arab governments and peoples and that pierced the heart of the Muslim world as well as the U.S. military.
The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects – stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware of it.
In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts – and clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike – the press has printed some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay flushing of the Koran comes to mind.
But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a Danish newspaper. Protests in London – never mind Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their commitment to democratic principles – included signs that read, “Behead those who insult Islam.” The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.
What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists – their threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as murdering the baby Jesus.
So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.
While we may disagree among ourselves about whether and when the public interest justifies the disclosure of classified wartime information, our general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a free press is informed by the fact – not opinion but fact – that without broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know carried out by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and publishers, our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent. There should be no group or mob veto of a story that is in the public interest.
When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press – an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms – would be among the first to surrender.
Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute and a former secretary of education. Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard University.
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So far as I can see, the only thing Bennett and Dershowitz got wrong is the last sentence. Is anyone really surprised that the left-leaning media would surrender to Muslim intimidation? The leftists are falling all over themselves to debase themselves before the Islamofascists in the name of appeasement. The Jews have been victimized for thousands of years, and Christians are clearly out of favor with the left because Christians generally have a problem with immoral behavor. (Never mind that all three religions proscribe drug abuse, casual sex and abortion.) If the dung-covered Mary in Boston and the crucifix dipped in urine (photo by a student at USC) aren’t blashphemous, I don’t know what is. Maybe if, as others have suggested, the Christians and Jews threw temper tantrums and made threats for a month, the mainstream media would stop publicizing these images (which are orders of magnitude more offensive than the Jyllands-Posten cartoons) as well.
______________________________________________________
San Diego Union-TribuneFebruary 24, 2006
This Time, The Press Failed The Public
By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz
There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and courageous reporters are many within the press corps. Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan in the 1960s were litigated so that the press could report on and examine public officials with the unfettered reporting a free people deserved. In the 1970s the Pentagon Papers case reaffirmed the proposition that issues of public importance were fully protected by the First Amendment.
The mass media that backed the plaintiffs in these cases understood that not only did a free press have a right to report on critical issues and people of the day but that citizens had a right to know about those issues and people. The mass media understood another thing: They had more than a right; they had a duty to report.
We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities. To our knowledge, only three print newspapers have followed their true calling: The Austin American-Statesman, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Sun. What have they done? They simply printed cartoons that were at the center of widespread turmoil among Muslims over depictions of the prophet Muhammad. These newspapers did their duty.
Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts. The manifold images of abuse at Abu Ghraib come to mind – images that struck at our effort to win support from Arab governments and peoples and that pierced the heart of the Muslim world as well as the U.S. military.
The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects – stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware of it.
In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts – and clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike – the press has printed some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay flushing of the Koran comes to mind.
But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a Danish newspaper. Protests in London – never mind Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their commitment to democratic principles – included signs that read, “Behead those who insult Islam.” The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.
What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists – their threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as murdering the baby Jesus.
So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.
While we may disagree among ourselves about whether and when the public interest justifies the disclosure of classified wartime information, our general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a free press is informed by the fact – not opinion but fact – that without broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know carried out by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and publishers, our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent. There should be no group or mob veto of a story that is in the public interest.
When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press – an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms – would be among the first to surrender.
Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute and a former secretary of education. Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard University.
______________________________________________________
So far as I can see, the only thing Bennett and Dershowitz got wrong is the last sentence. Is anyone really surprised that the left-leaning media would surrender to Muslim intimidation? The leftists are falling all over themselves to debase themselves before the Islamofascists in the name of appeasement. The Jews have been victimized for thousands of years, and Christians are clearly out of favor with the left because Christians generally have a problem with immoral behavor. (Never mind that all three religions proscribe drug abuse, casual sex and abortion.) If the dung-covered Mary in Boston and the crucifix dipped in urine (photo by a student at USC) aren’t blashphemous, I don’t know what is. Maybe if, as others have suggested, the Christians and Jews threw temper tantrums and made threats for a month, the mainstream media would stop publicizing these images (which are orders of magnitude more offensive than the Jyllands-Posten cartoons) as well.
posted by WickedWolf at 11:39 AM
1 Comments:
V,
Three things:
1. As I said in my second-ever post, while I generally lean conservative on many issues, I also did not and do not contribute to the GOP.
It's like this: I have always felt that faith and religion are generally two different things. Likewise, one's position on the issues is not synonymous with political affiliation.
2. I was asked recently what I meant when I described someone as a "liberal." Being a political liberal and being a Democrat are not necessarily synonymous, nor do the neo-commies like Cindy Sheehan and her ilk speak for all Democrats. Actualy Shehan and her backers are quite far to the left of the traditional Political Science 101 definition of a liberal. Sadly, the Democrats feel they have to appease this lunatic fringe largely to distinguish themselves from the Republicans. However, political "product differentiation," if you will, poses at least one significant problem.
To elucidate: In context with other multi-party pluralist systems in the world, the actual differences between mainstream Dems and mainstream Repubs is pretty insignificant. Therefore, to distinguish themselves, even small differences must be magnified. This creates in the body politic a heightened sense of political polarization. Unfortunately, when a society engages in this sort of political self-deception, and its members tend not to seek to put matters in their larger context, eventually they begin to believe the differences are more significant than they really are, given the larger context, and then they begin to behave accordingly.
I have no beef with regular Demnocrats who have reasoned, thought-out differences with me over various issues, but who nonetheless share my belief that our Constitutional form of government and market-based economy are the best available, despite their flaws.
The term "liberal," for many American conservatives has come to mean something different than the traditional definition. The term most commonly refers to the neo-hippie, neo-communist freaks that are the driving force behind many otherwise sensible Democrat positions. In furure, I will amend my language to reflect my understanding and refer to them as what they really are: leftists.
Given all that, it shouldn't be any surprise that I will quote even a "liberal" who happens to be right on an issue.
3. I wouldn't buff my shoes with our hometown rag, and I applaud your decision not to spend any money on it. Though I'm surprised you would even waste a thought on it. ;)
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