Town Hall Meeting

While watching Washington Week on PBS tonight, I heard a reporter speak about a government’s indirect responsiblity for murder. When asked who was responsible for the recent assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, Tom Gjelton said, “The assassination is clearly the consequence of the political environment in Lebanon right now and the argument [by the U.S.] is that Syria is responsible for that political environment. So, indirectly, at least [Syria is responsible for the assassination].” I hear things like this in the media today and wonder, how can they so boldly let certain rules apply to some and not to others? Only days after this assassination, there are claims that Syria was “at least indirectly” responsible due to their foreign policy (in this case an actual occupation) in Lebanon. How about almost four years later, the mainstream media admitting that 9/11 occurred at least indirectly due to U.S. foreign policy or even addressing that all the death occurring in Iraq today is due to the U.S. occupation of that country? Or that the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa or the U.S.S. Cole bombing weren’t just random acts against freedom and democracy. Our media is failing us and it is getting to the point of absurdity, listening to these wannabe journalists.

On a side note, PBS is supposed to be a place for Americans to get independent news. The panel on Washington Week are almost always from major institutions, such as Time Magazine, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. This is just another argument for supporting your local, independent media, such as Pacifica. In case you are wondering, Tom Gjelton works for NPR. I think you can safely lump NPR and PBS in with the rest of the mainstream media in terms of bad journalism. Why? Because the panelists on these shows are almost exclusively out of the mainstream media.