March 21, 2010

"News" Media

Originally published October 26, 2002

I found this HERE.

"We were waiting for this storm, we were sure it was necessary. The terrorists said to us, 'God is Allah, and we are eager to get into his kingdom. The Chechen women, who were among the terrorists, said they would be glad to gain freedom and were prepared to blow up themselves. When some noise was periodically heard outside the building, the female terrorists scattered around the hall among the sitting hostages. They laid hands on their belts and shouted that they would blow up the hall and themselves together with all those sitting," Chernyak said.
"This morning began with terrorists' shooting and killing two people. They shot in the eye of a young man, who was crying something like 'mummy, I do not know what to do!' and there was a lot of foaming blood. They also shot a woman in her belly. We understood that executions started."

Would we have the testicular fortitude in America to handle such a situation, or would authorities blither and blather worrying about covering their asses until all the hostages were dead? What would our sterling news media make of this (in my opinion) outstanding hostage rescue operation?

The DC sniper case is a good illustration of what's wrong with the news media today. If I didn't know any better, I would believe that Chandra Levy and the sniper victims are the ONLY PEOPLE EVER MURDERED in the DC area. That's bullshit, but you wouldn't know it from watching CNN and the rest of the breathless reporters out there. I believe that somehow, probably with the advent of CNN, we've gone from REPORTING the news to MANUFACTURING the news. After all, when you report 24-7, around the clock, you've gotta have SOMETHING to say; otherwise, you have nothing but dead air. I believe that the czars who run the BIG MEDIA believe that nothing is news unless they declare it to be. They are wrong.

Major news organizations ignored this situation in Russia, while recycling sniper stories, and that's a crying shame. This same situation could be coming soon to a theater near you.

I would call that news.