Craig Crawford: Media should question the motivation & timing of alerts

[highplainsdem]

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2005/10/07/publiceye/entry924555.shtml


CBS News

Public Eye

October 7, 2005

Outside Voices: Craig Crawford Talks Terror Politics And Media Response


<snip>

Sure, we don’t want to discount a threat that might be real and leave citizens vulnerable to danger. But there is also danger in the potential abuse of terror warnings and the crying-wolf syndrome that might set in, causing Americans to tune out alerts when they most need to be heard. Look at the demise of the color-coded alert system. It was basically scrapped because the public came to regard it as overused and silly, just more fodder for late-night comics.

The news media should be aggressive and skeptical from the outset about the possibility of manipulation in these moments, so that public officials are not tempted to play games with terror threats as yet another news management tool.

Instead, we have an environment that spooks reporters and their bosses off this trail, especially when the alerts are first announced, because they know that the politicians will attack them for being callous, or worse, treasonous.

But if the public stops buying politically-motivated attacks on the media, we could do our job and the truth might have a better chance.

<snip>


I've already posted this in GD, but this is an important column -- it should be required reading for everyone in the media -- and it won't disappear into the archives as fast here. Crawford made some similar comments on Countdown last night (Olbermann was also openly skeptical of the timing of yesterday's terror alert), but this column really makes his feelings about these suspiciously-timed alerts clear.

[AtomicKitten]

1. Olbermann called this, so did Jon Stewart

It's just "mainstream" media that continues the charade. Where's that leering sarcasm they showed Clinton?