Media Matters: Journalist's ego can cost lives

Who does it serve? That question has been the underpinning of my philosophy - the question I ask myself - before I share ANY story, or information I have heard.

My regular readers know how furious I get when I see the msm sharing details of military missions either ahead of time, or as they are happening. Drives me nuts. In times of war, what journalists share with their readers/viewers, can sometimes influence future events, and yes, cost lives.

I have often written about media hacks who rush to share all they know with the public. One such column was back in January 2009 called "Start Spreading the News." What? You expect originality here?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Start Spreading the News...

I think most of you have heard me ranting about how the msm has aided and abetted enemies of our countries. Time and again, I have lamented the sorry state of the media as they share - often on their front pages, or top of their newscasts - information that should NOT be shared. Too many times they have rushed to print - or on air - with the latest 'scoop', never mind that their blabbing could, and, indeed, may have, endangered not only national security, but the lives of our men and women.

I didn't think anything the msm did could surprise me anymore, but I was wrong. This past week I heard something so bizarre, I thought I had heard it wrongly. I couldn't believe my ears. Then I found this:...

To read what I found back in January 2009, go here. Yep, been a long time peeve of mine, and it seems the more things change, the more they remain the same.

From Israel National News:

Veteran Journalist: I'd Do the Same Today

Veteran journalist Yaakov Achimeir knew about the Israeli attack in Iraq in 1981 and said nothing. "I'd do the same today."

By Elad Benari

11/7/2011

Yaakov Achimeir

Israel news photo: Shomron Regional Council

In the wake of the media storm about the possibility of an Israeli military strike in Iran, a veteran journalist recalled on Sunday another Israeli military operation: the 1981 strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor.

On June 7, 1981, during the term of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel carried out Operation Opera, a surprise air strike that destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Yaakov Achimeir, veteran broadcaster on Channel One and Kol Yisrael radio, received firsthand information about Israel’s intention to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor, but kept silent and resisted the temptation to share the information with his viewers and journalist friends.

“About three or four weeks before the bombing, I received the information about the bombing,” Achimeir recalled in a conversation with Arutz Sheva. “A senior official told me about it and described the training the air force was doing in preparation for the operation. I listened with great interest.”

He added, “That official told me about it inadvertently because we were friends. He took a great risk because he had no idea I wouldn’t say anything about it. He spoke casually and revealed to me one of the greatest secrets of the State of Israel.”

Achimeir recalled that while he kept the details of the attack a secret from his colleagues, “at one point I told some people that something big is about to happen. I guess I had to share something with somebody.”

The easy part, he said, was not saying a word to the viewers when he was on camera....

This really IS a must read - maybe as part of journalism ethics classes? What? Go here.

The truth is, that ethics in journalism can be part of any curriculum in any school, but when push comes to shove, ethics are a personal matter. You either got 'em, or you don't, and no amount of 'learning' will change that.

Ahmadinejad gives another of his solutions to the Midle East issues

And yes, he is still as nuts as ever. Speaking at an 'International conference on Palestine' - in Tehran, as reported in Israel National News:

Ahmadinejad's 'Solution' to Conflict: Everyone Should Go Home

Iran leader's “solution” to the conflict between Israel and the PA: Arabs return to 'Palestine', Jews return to where they came from.

10/3/2011 By Elad Benari

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, [...], proposed on Sunday a “simple solution” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority: “Everyone should go home.”

“If the backers of the Zionist regime want to solve the issue... the solution is simple ... everyone should go home,” AFP quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during an international conference.

Referring to Jewish immigrants who came to Israel over the years, he added, “Some poor people were brought to Palestine on the promise of security and jobs while they made Palestinian people into refugees... So now Palestinians should go home and those brought here should go to theirs.”

Ahmadinejad’s comments were made during a two-day “International Conference on Palestine” which took place in Tehran. It was attended by parliamentarians from some 20 nations and figures including Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Hamas terrorist group.

At the conference opening on Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated the Islamic republic’s opposition to the division of so-called ‘Palestinian’ lands.

“Any plan which would lead to the division of Palestine is unacceptable,” AFP quoted Khamenei as having said. “Any plan that would create two states ... would be accepting a Zionist state in the land of Palestine.”...

There is more from this nutcase here.

Media Matters: Bias against Israel - again

In the midst of all the usual msm noise this past few days, five horrific murders - by terrorists - in Israel are again showing the blatant media biases against Israel. From The Algemeiner:

Itamar and British Media Bias

March 14, 2011 8:13 pm

I don’t own a television and I don’t buy newspapers. I do so mainly to save money, but also because I think that I end up better informed by seeking out information on the internet. A particularly striking example of this happened this week. Like many people I heard about the grizzly murders in Itamar on motzei Shabbat and I assumed that, since the brutal stabbing of children is something of a rarity, and matters Israeli are a veritable obsession for the British press, everyone else would have too. However, two conversations on Sunday with people who are neither ignorant nor apathetic quickly produced the response: ‘what murders?’

So I did some scouting. The killings were reported by some newspapers, though by no means all and always far from the front page. Nowhere on the news or in print were any pictures of the deceased shown, which is unusual for a media usually so keen to get footage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that they accept fairly obvious fakes. However, things only got really bad when I went onto the BBC website. Almost unbelievably, ‘Aunty’ (as people insist on calling it) reported the story as ‘Israel approves new Jewish settler homes in the West Bank’, mentioning down in paragraph three that this had followed the murder of the Fogels. It’s sometimes darkly joked that the world is more concerned with Jews building houses than Iranians building bombs, but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Britain’s state-funded broadcaster is more concerned with Jews building houses than Arabs breaking into a house and stabbing a three month old girl to death....

Go - now - and read the rest of this here.

Thus far, I have chosen not to add my own commentary, because the outrage I feel for this butchery prevents me from being any sort of articulate. Israeli Soldier's Mother wrote from her outrage, and her eloquence in the midst of this latest atrocity battering the Israeli family, is a must read:

A Choking Anger

"Did you hear?" Elie said when I came to the table moments after the Sabbath had ended.

"No, what?" I asked.

"Bad news," he said. And then he told me. "Two parents and three children. Stabbed. Itamar."

"Killed?" I asked, already feeling the horror starting to mount inside me.

"Yes," he answered quietly...

[...]


The anger, the rage that comes is almost more than I can stand. It chokes you. It fills you, infuriates you....

[...]

There are no words that can adequately describe the anger and the rage I am feeling and so there is no comfort. The world will forget, as it always does - each orphan, each infant. It sickens me beyond words....

Right now I have NO words to describe MY anger, my sorrow, at this latest evil, so go read the rest of Israeli Soldier's Mother's column here.

As you read, remember this: the innocent people of Israel live with these atrocities every.single.day. The msm is a willing accomplice in their part of the willful ignorance about the lives - the deaths of innocents - of the people of Israel.

And the world shrugs.

[Update:

As the world shrugs, and looks away, Israel National News is reporting on Yamar, the Fogel's 12 year old daughter.

"I Will Be Their Mother" Says 12 Year Old Tamar Fogel

by Uzi Baruch

The eldest daughter of the Fogel family, 12 year old Tamar, promised her relatives: "I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me, and I will be a mother to my siblings". The orphaned youngster's words were quoted in the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom.

In their home in the town of Neve Tsuf in Samaria, Tsila and Chaim Fogel, parents of Udi, are sitting on low benches for the traditional “shiva” week of mourning alongside his three brothers and sister. There is a constant stream of comforters going in and out of the house, VIP's and ordinary citizens from all over Israel, whose hearts go out to the bereft family that lost son, daughter-in-law, and three young grandchildren in a barbaric terrorist slaughter on Friday night.

Chaim Fogel continues to retell the story of terrible hours from 3 a.m. on, when he received the horrific news, drove to Itamar, met his 12 year old granddaughter and then entered the family’s home. The authorities were forced to ask her to tell what she saw when she returned from her youth group activity to find her family’s bloodsoaked bodies at 12:30 a.m. Chaim himself had the heartbreaking task of identifying the bodies.

"We came to take the surviving grandchildren out of the Valley of Death, he said. I don’t wish on anyone in the world the sight I saw. It is horrendous, beyond description, beyond comprehension".

The grandparents recalled the last time they saw Udi, Ruti and the children, a week and a half ago on Saturday night. They celebrated the start of the month of Adar Bet in Itamar, danced, sang and laughed....

Read the rest here.

Gaza in desperate need of humanitarian aid? Not so much

Courtesy of the msm, and the self-styled 'peace activists', we are all led to believe that life in Gaza is hell on earth. Terrible shortages, and deprivation of basic human needs, are rampant in Gaza, we are told.

Not so much, according to an article I found this morning:

A Tale of Two Worlds: Gaza and the Global Village

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Readers, please note: Some of the pictures in this article are upsetting.

Gaza Arabs’ life expectancy is well above average, and infant mortality rates are far higher in famine-plagued countries, but world aid continues to pour in to the Hamas-controlled region, according to official data.

Yet Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is asking U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday for more aid, in addition to the billons of dollars of foreign funds the PA has received the past few years. He has cited Israel’s partial blockade of Gaza as the main cause for alleged shortages in Gaza and in villages administered by the United Nations in Judea and Samaria.

Recent photos and statements by Arab sources deny any shortage of food or merchandise in Gaza. [Be sure to check that link.]

The Israeli government recently sent foreign journalists a link showing a fancy first-class restaurant in Gaza, noting "we have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended."

[A video follows]

Statistics provided by the United Nations and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show that while famine kills millions of small children in India (pictured), Guatemala and Africa, among other nations, the child mortality rate for Arab "refugees” is 35 per 1,000, compared with 180 per 1,000 in Angola and 116 in Niger.

The term "Palestinian refugees" refers to children who are descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in the 1948 War of Independence and the Six-Day War in 1967. Lebanon and Jordan, among other countries, prefer to keep the Arabs in “refugee camps” to prevent their integrating with the rest of the population, where they might pose a political challenge.

World hunger organizations report that 10-15 million below the age of 5 die each year, and 50,000 people die daily. One-third of all deaths in the world are due to poverty.

The life expectancy for Gaza Arabs is 72 years, nearly five years more than the world average, according to CIA World Factbook statistics. In Swaziland, the life expectancy is less than 40 years, and it is 42 years in Zambia.

What's that expression: 'None so blind, as those that will not see'?????

Go read the rest of this enlightening column here. Graphic evidence that Gaza really "needs" the humanitarian aid along the lines of what I showed you here.