The War on the Press

The recent controversy about the Newsweek blurb that was said to have set off the riots across the Muslim world and the response of the Administration demonstrates the hostility that the Administration shows towards the press. In a defense department press conference, a spokesman for the DoD said, ''People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?''. In addition, Rumsfeld stated about the response to the story, ''People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do.'' This clearly suggests a further turn towards more censorship, whether forced externally by the government or more subtle pressure, of the type that has been occuring since 9/11 for 'self-censorship'. Given the lack of coverage of the war in Iraq and the lies that were used to start it, this pressure appears to have been quite effective. It has stifled open dissent by equating dissent with a lack of patriotism. Where this will lead is unclear, but given the docile state of the American public, it wouldn't surprise me if some forms of coercive censorship of the press were the result. The most unreported fact that is highly important is that the subject of the protest, the desecration of the Koran, is not something that the Newsweek piece broke first. Many stories have documented the same kinds of abuses that Newsweek reported. The point that makes the coverage so strong is that the Administration now has essentially the opportunity to pin charges of murder upon the reporters. It is quite hypocritical because so much death has been hidden or glossed over by the Administration as a direct outcome of their policies. It is the Administration's policies that are to blame, much more so than any blurbs in Newsweek, for the deadly riots.