Chicken Little has managed a remarkable feat! She has
managed to appear on all six Media networks and take up an inordinate amount
of prime time news. This was made possible by the network programmers who
reacted with great fright to the fact that the terrorists (both real and
imagined) would dare to target them. The culprits never dreamed that their
attack could be so productive (destructive). This is because at least one of
the terrorists thought it would be great to send a sample of anthrax to Tom
Brokaw. The Media viewed it as an attack on the sacrosanct (!) Fourth
Estate, picked it up and ran with if, and is still running. As an
afterthought they sent anthrax to our Congress which reacted in a
predictable manner, shutting down and demanding a thorough cleaning of their
offices. Congress told the public that they "wanted to protect the
staff" and was not thinking about itself. Sure.
It doesn't seem to matter that there has been only one death from the
inhaled form of anthrax. One other person has contracted this form, but he
is expected to live. All of the rest of the anthrax cases have been the
cutaneous variety and are relatively benign. It is true that we have had no
confirmed cases of inhaled anthrax in many years. But you cannot rule out
misdiagnoses in that period. Anthrax is not considered a contagious disease
by any epidemiologist. Logic and common sense therefore dictate that whoever
mailed the anthrax failed spectacularly to start an epidemic or plague.
They were extremely successful however, in ratcheting up a clamor of fear
from our 'wuss' media. And they are still clamoring, trying to create
hysteria in anyone who will listen. Congress, being a little bit of a 'wuss'
itself listened. Hence, no Congress 'til Tuesday. The Media is the
hysterical screamer in our midst. You can hear it every day in the
breathless announcements on radio and in the solemn pontifications of the
news anchors on TV.
This is the same subset of our society that is telling us that the military
should not have the final judgment on what is released for publication
concerning future troop movements! They want the military to pass the
information to them (the Media) and let them decide what should be released
to the public. As a result of this convoluted thinking, we had the 'lights,
camera, action' crew waiting on the beaches of Somalia when our invasion
troops came ashore. And reporters were asking them to state their objective.
The enemy lay back in the bushes and, with their knowledge of our impending
moves totally destroyed our effort. Now they tell us that they should be the
ones who decide what to reveal about our troops? Sure.
The Media is the villain in both of these scenarios. Inciting hysteria
through their grip on print and electronic coverage of their selfish motive
to punish someone for daring to target them with anthrax. And requesting
more authority to decide what information will be released by our military
concerning present and future military tactics. Instead of following their
advice, or granting them more power, perhaps we should by very skeptical of
their worth in any arena.