Friday, February 24, 2006
A Profile in Media Courage
I've been outspokenly critical of the mainsteam media's reportage on America's war against Islamist terrorists. These reporters and pundits often seem to be rooting for the other side and getting professional applause and recognition for their behavior. That view is confirmed by noting two winners of the recent George Polk award.
But that's standard fare. The real news - and it's good - is the tale of a non-winner - a reporter who declined to damage his country just to make a flashy deadline. There are no media awards for that, but David Martin of CBS deserves one.
His Profile in Courage is quoted from the current issue of Window on The Week:
"Long Island University announced the 2005 winners of the George Polk awards for journalism, and the criterion appeared to be whether a journalist’s work had compromised national security. Winners included Dana Priest of the Washington Post — whose reporting exposed the existence of covert CIA interrogation centers in Europe — and Brian Ross of ABC News, whose reporting revealed even more details about those facilities. Given that such journalism is routinely rewarded, CBS News correspondent David Martin deserves all the more praise for declining to air a story on improvised explosive devices after the U.S. military told him it contained information that could help Iraqi insurgents make their attacks more deadly. “When I killed the story . . . it was 5:30 — an hour to air — and I left the Evening News broadcast without a lead story which they had been counting on all day,” he wrote on CBS News Public Eye. “Not a good career move.” Sadly, that observation is right."
But that's standard fare. The real news - and it's good - is the tale of a non-winner - a reporter who declined to damage his country just to make a flashy deadline. There are no media awards for that, but David Martin of CBS deserves one.
His Profile in Courage is quoted from the current issue of Window on The Week:
"Long Island University announced the 2005 winners of the George Polk awards for journalism, and the criterion appeared to be whether a journalist’s work had compromised national security. Winners included Dana Priest of the Washington Post — whose reporting exposed the existence of covert CIA interrogation centers in Europe — and Brian Ross of ABC News, whose reporting revealed even more details about those facilities. Given that such journalism is routinely rewarded, CBS News correspondent David Martin deserves all the more praise for declining to air a story on improvised explosive devices after the U.S. military told him it contained information that could help Iraqi insurgents make their attacks more deadly. “When I killed the story . . . it was 5:30 — an hour to air — and I left the Evening News broadcast without a lead story which they had been counting on all day,” he wrote on CBS News Public Eye. “Not a good career move.” Sadly, that observation is right."
