[Mb-civic] A Failure of the Press - William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

A Failure of the Press

By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz
Thursday, February 23, 2006; A19

There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free 
expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and 
courageous reporters are many within the press corps. Cases such as New 
York Times v. Sullivan in the 1960s were litigated so that the press 
could report on and examine public officials with the unfettered 
reporting a free people deserved. In the 1970s the Pentagon Papers case 
reaffirmed the proposition that issues of public importance were fully 
protected by the First Amendment.

The mass media that backed the plaintiffs in these cases understood that 
not only did a free press have a right to report on critical issues and 
people of the day but that citizens had a right to know about those 
issues and people. The mass media understood another thing: They had 
more than a right; they had a duty to report.

We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but 
on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not 
only its duties but its responsibilities. To our knowledge, only three 
print newspapers have followed their true calling: the Austin 
American-Statesman, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Sun. What 
have they done? They simply printed cartoons that were at the center of 
widespread turmoil among Muslims over depictions of the prophet 
Muhammad. These papers did their duty.

Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no 
problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration 
and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts. The 
manifold images of abuse at Abu Ghraib come to mind -- images that 
struck at our effort to win support from Arab governments and peoples, 
and that pierced the heart of the Muslim world as well as the U.S. military.

The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified 
information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects -- 
stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance 
program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware 
of it.

In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts -- and 
clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike -- the press has printed 
some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay 
flushing of the Koran comes to mind.

But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over 
cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a 
Danish newspaper. Protests in London -- never mind Jordan, the Gaza 
Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their 
commitment to democratic principles -- included signs that read, "Behead 
those who insult Islam." The mainstream U.S. media have covered this 
worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of 
our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few 
exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.

The Boston Globe, speaking for many other outlets, editorialized: 
"[N]ewspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of 
Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance."

But as for caricatures depicting Jews in the most medievally horrific 
stereotypes, or Christians as fanatics on any given issue, the 
mainstream press seems to hold no such value. And in the matter of 
disclosing classified information in wartime, the press competes for the 
scoop when it believes the public interest warrants it.

What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of 
intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these 
cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists -- their 
threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics 
claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of 
the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated 
Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel 
Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as 
murdering the baby Jesus.

So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has 
been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a 
story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or 
caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, 
the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to 
justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form 
of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from 
Christians and Jews than from Muslims.

While we may disagree among ourselves about whether and when the public 
interest justifies the disclosure of classified wartime information, our 
general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a free 
press is informed by the fact -- not opinion but fact -- that without 
broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know carried out 
by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and publishers, 
our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent. There should be no 
group or mob veto of a story that is in the public interest.

When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the 
attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our 
freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press -- an 
institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms -- would be among 
the first to surrender.

William J. Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute 
and a former secretary of education. Alan M. Dershowitz is a law 
professor at Harvard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022202010.html?nav=hcmodule
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