Doug Ross @ Journal

Is the Mainstream Media the Enemy?

The accompanying photo, broadcast and distributed in print throughout the world, depicts an Israeli soldier brutalizing an innocent Palestinian. At least that's what the MSM, including the New York Times, said. The facts behind the picture? The man beaten within an inch of his life is Tuvia Grossman, an American, who was pulled out of his vehicle by a Palestinian mob and assaulted.

The invaluable LGF occasionally posts brief blurbs about the media's odd behavior with respect to the global war on terror. Each is labeled under the heading, "The Media Is the Enemy". And each describes an MSM article or anecdote ranging from disenguous to blatantly dishonest.

Think they're a bit off-kilter in targeting outlets like Reuters and the Associated Press? Well, frankly, how else to explain odd linkages between the press and terror groups? For example, consider the terrorist mastermind who played a role in a Reuters reporter's going-away party:

Top terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi made a “guest appearance” in a video prepared by the staff of Reuters news agency in Israel and the Palestinian Authority as a “going away” gift for a colleague...

Or the report that Agency France Presse and the Associate Press employed reporters who simultaneously received paychecks from the Palestinian Authority?

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) ― have employed journalists with inappropriately close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Majida al-Batsh was a Palestinian affairs correspondent for AFP for many years, while simultaneously being on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam. If this is not evidence enough of impropriety at AFP, last year Batsh announced she would actually run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority...

And how else to explain the July Fifth "March against terror" in Iraq, that you never heard about?

On July 5, more than 1,000 Iraqi citizens joined with Iraqi Army and police to march against terror. And mainstream media could not possibly have cared less.

How else to justify calling cold-blooded killers of scores of innocent children "insurgents" rather than what they are: terrorists.

...the use of the term "insurgents" by the mainstream media -- a conscious/unconscious attempt to cloak a rag-tag amalgamation of fascists, jihadists and common criminals in the romantic mantle of Pancho Villa -- should now be placed in the junk pile. "Insurgents," in most historical uses, has referred to groups trying to upset an illegitimate or semi-legitimate regime... It's time for the mainstream media to start calling the terrorists by their true names and ideological identities, such as they are. There is no justification any longer for the use of the euphemism "insurgents," unless you are writing pro-fascist propaganda...

Finally, one MSM outlet has put a stake in the ground. Yesterday's editorial in the Dallas Morning News offered stark admission of some fundamental flaws in MSM nomenclature (Call Them What They Are: Those who murder Iraqi civilians are terrorists):

Today, this editorial board resolves to sacrifice another word – “insurgent” – on the altar of precise language. No longer will we refer to suicide bombers or anyone else in Iraq who targets and kills children and other innocent civilians as “insurgents.” ...As children crowded around U.S. soldiers handing out candy and toys in a gesture of good will, a bomb-laden SUV rolled up and exploded. These children were not collateral damage. They were targets. The SUV driver was no insurgent. He was a terrorist. People who set off bombs on London trains are not insurgents. We would never think of calling them anything other than what they are – terrorists. Train bombers in Madrid? Terrorists. Chechen rebels who take over a Russian school and execute children? Terrorists. Teenagers who strap bombs to their chests and detonate them in an Israeli cafe? Terrorists. IRA killers? Basque separatist killers? Hotel bombers in Bali? Terrorists all. Words have meanings. Whether too timid, sensitive or “open-minded,” we’ve resisted drawing a direct line between homicidal bombers everywhere else in the world and the ones who blow up Iraqi civilians or behead aid workers. No more. To call them “insurgents” insults every legitimate insurgency in modern history. They are terrorists.

It's high time the diminishing readership of mainstream newspapers told the editors and publishers what's on their minds before cancelling their subscriptions. It's one thing to offer honest dissent and criticism. Collaboration, obfuscation or encouragement of the enemies of the United States? That's another thing altogether. As it stands, the MSM is about as relevant as a can of lard in a GNC store. More and more citizens simply ignore it.