I’ve seen several news stories regarding lapses in security in cities and locations in the U.S. Since September 11, the response these stories inevitable get is “Thanks for giving the terrorists ideas, idiots!”
Damn, does that piss me off. The reason that the media reports on these security lapses is not to give terrorists ideas. It’s to bring about change, which is one of the functions of the media. Terrorists don’t need a newspaper story to know where it might be possible to attack. But governments might need a newspaper story to get a wake-up call and change things.
Case in point: Last week, the New York Post reported how Penn Station was severely understaffed in security. As a result, the National Guard began patrolling there to pick up the slack.
Last month they did a story on how easy it is to make a fake police car. Instead of a call for new laws making it harder to acquire police gear, people wrote letters saying “Thanks for pointing that out, jerks”. These people totally missed the point. If the news media willfully ignores something like this for fear that it might be useful to the terrorists, then they have failed.
I’m sorta torn on this. On the one hand, the point you make is valid. On the other hand, the American press is a vast and creative bunch. It’s entirely possible they can come up with an idea that others haven’t.
I know I wouldn’t want to see a story about how poorly guarded the plutonium stash is in the laboratory at 112 18th Street in East Rockaway, NJ.
Sauron–if no one reports it, then how is security there going to be beefed up? Say a worker from the hypothetical stash calls the paper and says, “We’ve got weapons grade plutonium here, and only a rent-a-cop guarding our door. No one knows this but the 5 people who work here. Higher-ups haven’t checked on us in months.” If I was that reporter, I’d call the police, FBI, whoever and run that page one so something could be DONE about it, rather than keep my mouth shut and wait for a terrorist to figure it out for him/herself.
Simple fact is, it’s all a waste of time, like trying to make a chain link fence waterproof by putting your fingers in the holes. Any news story of the type you mention just has the effect that politicians pull resources from doing something useful to plugging the particular gap that is being complained of, so as to be seen to be doing something.
The US is too big, reality is too complicated, the ways of creating chaos too many. Anything you think of, any hole you plug, there are other ways. But as long as there are people like you who actually waste your time on this stuff, the terrorists are achieving what they set out to.
That’s assuming they get their facts straight to begin with. One of our local “news” reporters did a piece on how easy it would be to break into the Nashville water treatment plant and add something to the drinking supply or blow it up so that we’d have no drinking water. Somehow, the reporter failed to notice that he’d actually broke into the sewage treatment plant! (We made “News of the Weird” over that one.)
Elwood, the bulk of the media will report anything that sells. Justification comes afterward.
Happily, for journalists with fewer scruples, as concerned major debates, there’s always a flurry of arguments on both sides. So… no worries! They can just side with whatever argument serves their story. Don’t imagine they’re ignorant of how to cover their “hot” reporting with a veneer of some popular sentiment! Reporters are people who’s food source depends on selling whatever story they find, and sticking to it as though it were mana coming from heaven.
I realize that your larger point lies quite elsewhere, questions about what should be speculated on in public, and whether publically confronting incompetent, complaisant government agencies is in the public interest. THAT’S the important point you’ve brought up. The big question, not wanting my country to be destroyed by terrorists, is: How can we get our governmental agencies to take effective action? I REALLY don’t care whether a bunch of cocksure newpaper reporters are the agents of change. I just want change to happen. Don’t you?
