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| Rummy on Truth in Journalism |
| 2004-04-24 |
| Excerpt from Secretary Rumsfeld Remarks to the Newspaper Association of America/American Society of Newspaper Editors Today, in the global war on terror, there is often a non-trivial difference between what is reported and the facts on the ground. Al- Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah, with their broad coverage in the Middle East, are routinely telling the world lies about coalition actions. But I believe that that, too, will be corrected over time. Afghans and Iraqis are now free. After decades of being fed lies by dictatorial regimes and the controlled press, they are starting to thirst for the truth. In Iraq, since liberation one year ago, more than 200 newspapers have popped up. Afghanistan now has more than 100 papers in Kabul alone, I’m told. Just a few years ago your contemporaries in Iraq and Afghanistan were jailed and tortured and killed if they had the courage to report the news as they saw it. Just as Americans have, so too free Afghans and Iraqis will eventually develop their own sense of balance, their own inner gyroscopes, and an ability to absorb what they hear. -snip- Q Lou Ureneck from Boston University. Some experts have said that -- SEC. RUMSFELD: I thought this was for editors and publishers. (Laughter.) Q Formerly of the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Laughter.) I teach journalism at Boston University. SEC. RUMSFELD: Wellllll, that’s close. (Laughter.) What do you think, folks? (Laughter.) (Applause.) You want to let him have it? All right. What is it, Professor? Q Hopefully, the students are listening. (Laughter.) Some people say that the current insurrection in Iraq is traceable to the closure of a newspaper a couple of weeks ago by Mr. Bremer. I’d like to get your thinking and reasoning about that event and what it may have contributed to the events of the last week and a half or so. SEC. RUMSFELD: I love the beginning of that question, "some people think." There is nothing that some people don’t think. (Laughter, applause.) The idea that the conflict and the flare-ups and the shootings and the killings that are taking place in Iraq today are a result of the closing of that paper, I think, is, A, a stretch, and B, undoubtedly not provable, and, I would submit, not only not provable, but not accurate. The paper was closed for 60 days, I’m told. It still is under way. The coalition determined that it was inciting Iraqi citizens to violence by deliberately reporting false stories, which is a violation of the law that prohibits inciting civil disorder in Iraq at the present time. More than a hundred papers have sprung up in Iraq. Most are covering events in a very responsible way. Now let’s get a REAL editor or publisher. (Laughs.) (Laughter.) I hope your students are not watching. (Laughter.) |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #1 I think he handled that poorly; I think he'd have been much better off pointing out that Sadr has been planning these actions for a fairly long time, much longer than the time span of the closure of the newspaper. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-04-24 11:16:18 AM |