OUTRAGEOUS!
Reported by Melanie - August 31, 2004 -
Once again I place my comments at the beginning of this post about today's (August 31, 2004) "Common Sense," or "analysis" segment of Your World w/Neil Cavuto.
Cavuto's (and Fox's) hypocracy was screaming today in this segment, as was the transparency of Fox's intentions.
No one yelled louder when the American "contractors" were killed in Fallujah and their burned bodies hung from a bridge there. No one cried shame! more frequently than when Al Jazeera showed the bodies of decapitated Americans or dead US soldiers. No one called it unpatriotic more often than Fox when pictures of flag-drapped coffins of US soldiers were shown by some news outlets last Spring, and no one was more appalled when Frontline read a list of names and showed the pictures of all soldiers killed in Iraq.
You know why? Because those images were/are all bad for Bush.
Now though, as the election nears and everyone knows it's to Bush's advantage to keep the electorate frightened, ever-mindful of terrorism and of the horror of 9/11 so they cleave to him as their protector-President, Fox has reversed course. Here is Neil Cavuto's "Common Sense analysis." This is a complete transcript.
"You know, there's a tendency at this convention to talk about 9/11, but not to show 9/11. No one wants to be seen politicizing it, so they tip toe around images of it.
"Frankly, I've had enough of it. There is no nice way to talk about that day, or gloss over what happened that day. Sometimes it does us all good to show [Video of the towers burning, people running, people covered in ash - the worst images of 9/11 appear on screen.] that day so that we never forget what happened that day. To show the planes ramming into those towers and yes, people jumping from those towers.
"Put up warnings of course, brace people for the worst, but then I want you to show them the worst. All of the worst.
"Sometimes I think we like to sanitize terror. Maybe it's our way of dealing with terror. Compartmentalizing terror. Yes, getting over terror.
"Three years ago this week, we never would have conceived of something so horrible happening here. But, you know, it did happen here. [End video. Back to Cavuto.] I don't think we should ever forget that, or compartmentalize that.
"News organizations, my own included, quite rightly don't want to offend people. I say warn people, but then go ahead, offend them. Jar them. Shock them. Again and again and again. Remind them that they are not safe. That evil is not dead, and time does not heal all wounds.
"If we're not careful, we're doomed to be careless. Those images are not pretty, but they are our past and if we blithely ignore their brutality, they're doomed to be our future."
