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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 18, 2011/ 14 Adar I, 5771
News reporters --- or Narrative Shapers?
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A funny thing happened on the way to the glorious democracy ostensibly emerging in Egypt. CBS reporter Lara Logan, "covering the jubilation" as CBS put it, was surrounded by a mob of men screaming, "Jew, Jew!" who beat and sexually assaulted her. She is currently recovering in a U.S. hospital from injuries described as "serious." Despite the fact that the incident occurred last Friday, CBS sat on the story until it became apparent that other members of the media had gotten wind of it. Why? The bet here is that this incident interferes with the mainstream media-established narrative regarding the true nature of some "freedom-loving" Egyptians. People yearning for democracy aren't supposed to be anti-Semitic thugs or sexual predators as well. Thus, a genuine news item became an "un-story."
Perhaps the mainstream media news organizations should no longer be called news organizations. Perhaps a better name would be narrative shapers. If there is one certainty that exists today, it is the idea that truth has become a sidebar to political agendas. CBS and others operate one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase with the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's immortal contention that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
Here is an unpleasant fact: Islam treats women and non-believers like second-class citizens, aka dhimmis, under the best of circumstances. Under the worst of circumstances, dhimmitude can literally be deadly.
How deadly? Another "unpleasant" reality being kept under the radar by our mainstream narrative shapers involves a 14-year old Bangaladeshi girl known as Mossamet Hena or Hena Begum. Hena was raped by her 40-year old married cousin. For her "crime," she was first beaten by family members. After that, a village arbitration committee comprised of elders and clerics using Sharia Law as their guide, issued a fatwa calling for the girl to receive 100 lashes with a whip. After 80 blows, Hena fell unconscious and died in a hospital six days later. The village also imposed a $700 fine on her family in a country where the average annual income is $520.
Who covered the story? Other than the blogosphere, my research revealed two traditional news sources: the BBC and USA Today. But USA Today didn't do its own story--it cited a Bangaladesh newspaper, the Daily Star, as its source. Why would such a story remain under the radar? National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy, who mentioned this atrocity in a recent column, explains:
"Under sharia, rape cannot be proved absent the testimony of four witnesses. Rapists tend not to bring witnesses along for their attacks. In any event, moreover, sharia values a woman's testimony as only half that of a man, so the deck is stacked and rape cannot be proved in most cases. Yet that hardly means the report of rape is of no consequence. Unable to establish that she'd been forcibly violated, the teenager became in the eyes of the sharia court a woman who'd had sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Thus the draconian lashing sentence that became a death sentence."
Such clarity is utterly anathema to a mainstream media which has hitched its wagon to the multiculturalist star. It is a linkage so secure that a 14 year old girl first raped and then beaten to death is swept into obscurity, lest the true nature of Sharia Law be revealed in all its bloodthirsty excess. It is a linkage so secure that even the sexual mauling of one of its own is to be calculatingly suppressed, lest some of the actors in the current narrative of "jubilant Egyptian the democracy" be revealed as the tip of a less-than-jubilant, no-so-democratic iceberg.
Make no mistake: CBS only revealed the story when other news organizations got wind of it. At that point they decided to be "in front of the story" as they say in newsrooms. Despite that decision, CBS still attempted to rationalize it, according to an inside source who told the NY Post that "Logan was 'involved in the process' of deciding whether to make her attack public," implying that her permission was necessary in order to disseminate the story. That's nonsense, plain and simple.
What is really going on in the Middle East? Upheaval--of a largely undefined nature. Where is it leading? Despite mountains of "expert" analysis, one really knows, not even the participants themselves. The American news media? A pack of Walter Durantys with narratives as tailored as those the NY Times Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter spun about the great "democratic reformer" known as Josef Stalin. A group of narrators as practiced in the art of taqiyya, which is defined as lying to protect Islam, as the Islamists themselves.
And not just Islamists. In my entire career as a columnist, I can't recall a time when so many members of the Fourth Estate were so willing to run interference for a president and his administration. Can anyone remotely imagine CBS spiking the same story if George W. Bush were president? Lara Logan would have been the poster girl for "unrealistic expectations of democracy in Egypt." Bush would have been thoroughly excoriated for his idea that freedom is "G0d's gift to mankind," even as Barack Obama's water-carriers have been characterizing the events in Egypt as "one the great triumphs of the human spirit" (Thomas Friedman, NY Times), or "a massive eloquent validation of the moral force and power of non-violent civil disobedience" comparable to the "legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King." (Clarence B. Jones, Huffington Post).
Tell it to Lara Logan, fellas.
I wish Ms. Logan a speedy recovery. I wish I could do the same for Hena Begum. If it were up to the far too many narrative shapers in the mainstream media, you wouldn't have heard a word about either one.
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Previously:
02/16/11: The Presidents Budget Proposal: An Obamination of Progressive Profligacy
02/14/11: Only Another 9/11 Will Alter the Illegal Immigration Status Quo
02/10/11: Is O'Reilly losing his touch or is he just irresponsible?
02/07/11: Tossing Britain Under the Bus
02/03/11: Starving the World In Order to Save It
01/31/11: Walking the Middle East Tightrope
01/27/11: Small-scale Terrorist Attacks: Big Strategy?
01/24/11: Jeffery Immelt: A Crony Capitalist In Charge of Job Creation
01/20/11: An Intimate Prime-time Interview
01/17/11: Progressives: Always Angry, Newly Desperate
01/12/11: Twain vs. the Totalitarians
01/10/11: Politically Correct Passports?
01/05/11: Showdown at the Fiscal Corral
01/03/11: Reading the Constitution Aloud is a Good Start
12/30/10: Getting Our Moral Mojo Back
12/27/10: PC Airport Safety is an Oxymoron
12/23/10: Getting America Back On Track
12/20/10: A Collectivist Coalition of Convenience
12/15/10: The President Who Wasn't There
12/13/10: Tech-No!
12/08/10: A Lethal Military, Inclusive or Not
12/06/10: The Unexpected Consequences of Progressivism
12/01/10: Leakers and Losers
11/29/10: We Won, Part One
11/22/10: Keep Your Hands Off My Constitution
11/17/10: Grope and Change
11/14/10: Taking Back Our Country, One School At a Time
11/11/10: Checks (and Balances), Please
11/08/10: Curtain Up, Progressives Down
11/04/10: Last Chance, Republicans
11/01/10: By Their Own Words Shall Ye Know Them
10/28/10: Progressive Determination to Undermine American Elections
10/25/10: Shock, but more importantly, action: De-Unionize Public Schools now
10/20/10: Multiculturalism? Check, Please
10/18/10: Healthcare: Alice in Wonderland vs. The Constitution
10/11/10: Vote for Restoring the Rule of Law in November
10/11/10: Dems: Running From Clarity
10/07/10: Hypersensitive Hogwash
10/04/10: Comprehensive Con Artists
09/29/10: Why Dems Are Going Down in November
09/27/10: The Unholiest of Unholy Alliances
09/22/10: Two Words for Republicans to Remember: I Won
09/20/10: Purging Me First Politicians
09/17/10: No More Lesser of Two Evils
09/15/10: Recovery Arms Race
09/13/10: Bigots in the Majority --- Again?
09/09/10: Giving Voters Something to Vote For
09/07/10: Irresponsible Dems, Incomprehensible Bills
09/02/10: War Weary Americans vs. Implacable Islamists
08/31/10: A Dream Debased
08/25/10: American Bigots Versus Media Propagandists
08/23/10: Recovery Bummer
08/19/10: An Unholy Alliance of Radicals
08/16/10: You've Lost America, Mr. President
08/13/10: The Twin Towers of Progressive Disconnect
08/11/10: A Far Better National Discussion
08/09/10: It's Only One Dead Nun
08/06/10: Incremental Tyranny
08/04/10: Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts
08/02/10: The Arizona Ruling: a Gift for November
07/29/10: The United Cities of America
07/26/10: JournoList: Coordinated Ideological Bankruptcy
07/20/10: Go For Broke Or Get Out of the Way
07/14/10: You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe…
07/12/10: $33-an-hour--For Sleeping On the Job
07/08/10: Extortionist Government
07/06/10: Commerce Clause Totalitarians
07/01/10: Another Public School Travesty in MA
06/30/10: Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
06/28/10: A Trifecta of Progressive Corruption
06/23/10: Plug the Darn Hole --- In Our Border
06/21/10: Our Empty-Suit-in-Chief
06/16/10: Betraying Our Children
06/14/10: Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt?
06/07/10: Politically Correct Warfare
06/01/10: Bill Maher's Black President
05/25/10: A Mosque At Ground Zero
05/23/10: Libs Stand Tall --- For Mexico
05/19/10: The 'Unintended Consequences' of Liberalism
05/17/10: 'Los' Suns: Stuck on Stupido
05/12/10: Union Audacity: Yes We Will!
05/10/10: Greeks, Leaks and and Double-Speak
05/05/10: Twelve Million Illegals --- or Thirty?
05/02/10: Republicans: Playing Not to Lose Doesn't Cut It
04/28/10: Arizona: Progressivism's Waterloo?
04/26/10: Son of Amnesty
04/22/10: Mortgages and Moral Meltdowns
04/20/10: Bashing Christians Or Gays?
04/15/10: Personal Integri-tea
04/12/10: Fools, Tools and Ghouls
04/08/10: (Tea) Party On
04/05/10: The Triumph of Mediocrity
04/02/10: Two For the Road
03/29/10: The Innate Immorality of Liberalism
03/24/10: The Art of War
03/22/10: I Want My Country Back
03/18/10: A Perpetual Process
03/17/10: American Exhibitionists
03/15/10: A Light Bulb Moment of Clarity
03/10/10: Little Things Mean A Lot
02/03/10: Budgetary Fork in the Road
02/01/10: Liberal Economic Illiteracy
01/27/10: Roe-ing and Wade-ing Back to Reason
01/25/10: Arrogance When Up, Denial When Down
01/20/10: Connecting the Educational Dots
01/19/10: The Next Tea Party?
01/15/10: The Myth That Keeps on Giving
01/13/10: Airport Security Begins Away From the Airport
01/11/10: Secrets and Lies
01/08/10: Embracing Bigotry or Rejecting Bullying?
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our Wonderama Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: Settled Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: Opting Out of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: Truthers and Consequences
09/01/09: A Paper Trail Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2010, Arnold Ahlert
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