Don’t get me started on their blithe hypocrisy in reporting on Hillary’s e-mails…
What do you think FOX News, the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, and other news organizations would do if Assange were leaking hacked e-mails of their anchors and reporters – purportedly to expose bias in the media? The obvious answer only hints at why my disgust with the news media compelled me to write commentaries like “Journalism Is ‘Having a Very, Very Pathetic Moment,’” November 13, 2013.
Most importantly, though, few news organizations are bothering to report on the damaging nature of Assange’s leaks. And none of them appear to have any qualms about facilitating his cyber crimes, which serve no compelling public interest and are devoid of any socially redeeming value.
(“Hey Media, Wikileaker Assange Is Still a Self-Promoting, Bail-Jumping Rape Suspect!” The iPINIONS Journal, August 29, 2016)
It’s bad enough that useful idiots like Edward Snowden and Donald Trump are helping Russia’s neo-Stalinist leader, Vladimir Putin, propagate propaganda about the United States. But it portends national self-destruction that news organizations are helping him sow dismay, discord, and distrust in the country as well. Specifically, they are helping Putin’s cyber spies violate the privacy of ordinary citizens and public officials alike.
With respect to hacking ordinary citizens, news organizations are broadcasting hacked details of exemptions Simone Biles, Venus Williams, and her sister Serena obtained from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to take banned substances. This, notwithstanding that the substances at issue treat medical conditions, but do not enhance athletic performances.
And don’t get me started on the utterly contemptible attempt by a wannabe superpower like Russia to demean and discredit these clean, hardworking and universally acclaimed athletes … who just happen to be black.
Russian hackers — possibly the same group that compromised the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers — have made top American athletes their latest target.
Joining an intercontinental dispute over sports doping, the hackers penetrated the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete database and publicly revealed private medical information about three of the United States’ most famous athletes: Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Simone Biles.
(New York Times, September 13, 2016)
What’s more, news organizations are doing this willfully. After all, they know full well that the Russians are only trying to propagate the false narrative that Western governments are no different from Russia’s when it comes to state-sponsored doping. But don’t get me started on Russia launching this utterly contemptible black-ops by targeting these three American athletes … who just happen to be black.
Incidentally, this state-sponsored hacking of anti-doping agencies vindicates the call I made nearly a year ago to ban Russia from hosting any international event:
WADA should enlist the governing bodies of all major sports to ban Russia from hosting any sanctioned competition, so long as Putin remains in power. Because, no matter their representations, officials in Putin’s Russia will never implement the reforms WADA deems are necessary to eradicate this systemic doping.
(“In Putin’s Russia Even Athletics Is a Criminal (Doping) Enterprise,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 9, 2015)
Significantly, this ban would preclude Russia from hosting the 2018 World Cup, which Putin is surely banking on using as an even bigger embezzlement and propaganda showpiece than his $50-billion 2014 Sochi Olympics turned out to be.
With respect to hacking public officials, new organizations are broadcasting details of hacked e-mails from the account of former Secretary of State Colin Powell. No doubt the Russians are hoping this causes the most damage.
Powell has long been one of the high priests of the Washington establishment, staying quiet in this year’s raucous presidential campaign while tending to his reputation as a thoughtful officer and diplomat.
But a hack of Mr. Powell’s email this week has ripped away the diplomatic jargon and political niceties to reveal his unvarnished disdain of Donald J. Trump as a ‘national disgrace,’ his personal peeves with Hillary Clinton and his lingering, but still very raw, anger with the Republican colleagues with whom he so often clashed a decade ago.
(New York Times, September 14, 2016)
In this case, news anchors are going so far as to perform dramatic readings of Powell’s private emails. Never mind that those e-mails contain nothing more than the kind of garden-variety bitching and gossip we all share, but would be mortified to have read on air as “breaking news.”
Mind you, every anchor prefaces this reading by hailing Powell’s impeccable reputation … before trashing it as nothing more than political fodder. They clearly couldn’t care any less about the damage they’re doing to his political relationships and influence.
Yellow journalism is as old as the republic itself. But when they codified the freedom of the press, the Founding Fathers could not have imagined American journalists blithely helping Russian spies — to not only undermine American democracy but also besmirch the reputation of American citizens.
You can bet the NSA and CIA are retaliating. But not having Russian journalists do the bidding of American spies gives Russian spies a considerable advantage.
Hence it behooves Congress to enact legislation banning news organizations from broadcasting hacked information and e-mails – unless they can identify the original source AND the leaked items serve a compelling public interest (i.e., not just ratings-generating prurient interests).
While at it, Congress should enact a similar ban on news organizations turning losers who perpetrate mass shootings and other acts of terrorism into rock stars. I’ve been arguing for nearly a decade – in commentaries like “Massacre in Omaha,” December 7, 2007 – that such media coverage only incentivizes other losers to perpetrate similar acts. Turning hacked e-mails into soap-opera scripts provides an equally perverse incentive.
The government has no greater duty than to keep the American people safe from harm. This obtains whether that harm is posed in cyberspace or physical space.
Therefore, join me in calling on Congress to act pursuant to this most compelling national interest.
Related commentaries:
Snowden…
Wikileaker Assange…
Massacre in Omaha…
Russia state-sanctioned doping…
Putin turns Sochi…