Democracies must not Kill the Messenger

I recently watched the movie "Kill the Messenger" which was released in the fall of 2014. It's the story of journalist Gary Webb who in 1996 began looking into links between Nicaragua's drug-running Contra rebels and the CIA. He published his findings under the title "Dark Alliance" in the San Jose Mercury News in which he submitted that a US-backed rebel army in Latin America was supplying the drugs that made their way into some of Los Angeles' poorest neighbourhoods. More importantly, he tied the CIA to the drugs. "For the better part of a decade a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tonnes of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles, and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency."

He wasn't the first to make connections between the CIA and the Contras. In 1989, a Senate inquiry into America's involvement in the drug trade, chaired by John Kerry, found that the U.S. State Department had paid drug traffickers with funds authorized by Congress for "humanitarian assistance to the Contras." Other journalists wrote about the events. But it was Webb who followed the trail of drugs back to America and blew the story wide open. And the story spread. Many black communities were up in arms that the CIA could have been responsible for the easy accessibility to the new drug-crack cocaine -and the devastation that it brought. Ultimately, though, rather than attacking the story, the media attacked Webb. His paper abandoned him. Journalists who had applauded him walked away. Webb committed suicide in 2014. The messenger was killed. It's too bad this movie didn't do better because it's about the failure of the main stream media to do its job-protecting democracy from attack by its own government. I don't know when "attack the journalist" started in order to obfuscate stories. I do know that journalists have become too easily persuaded by the narrative and agenda of their own media outlets to go after the truth, search for facts on the ground. When the media, from fear or any other reason, defends, protects, or is willfully blind to the actions of the government or its agencies, the citizens suffer and democracy is put into peril. The lesson of Gary Webb has not been learned. Media bias continues to put a chill on the messenger.

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Media dereliction of duty to the citizenry

The revelations by The Centre for Medical Progress of the selling of fetal tissue by Planned Parenthood has been undermined by left wing media outlets who choose instead to attack the messenger rather than deal with the facts. And more time was spent on the story of Cecil the Lion than the dismemberment of an aborted fetus. The left tried to tie the revelations to a right-wing "conspiracy" to end a woman's right to choose. This is media failure. Their job is neither defending a particular political message, party or leader. Their job is to put aside their own biases and report the facts. When John Kerry recently rebuked Democrat Robert Menendez "for revealing what he says is a "classified" clause in the Iran nuclear deal which stated that Iran will be the one to provide the UN atomic agency with samples from sites with suspected nuclear activity" the media should have confronted John Kerry for keeping information from the people. The media-left and right-should have demanded greater transparency. Yet, this story seems to have disappeared from view. I recently saw reports on Fox News (yes that much-maligned right of centre news outlet that's attacked by the left in their the constant attempt to kill the messenger) about new documents released on the Benghazi terrorist attack September 11, 2012. "The report reveals that U.S. Intelligence agencies were fully aware that weapons were moving from the terrorist stronghold in Libya to Syria before the attack that killed four Americans. It also ties the attack to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and puts to rest the Obama/Clinton narrative that the attack was a 'spontaneous demonstration caused by a YouTube video.'" This is media dereliction of duty to the citizenry. And the policy of killing the messenger is affecting campus life as well. Left wing organizations or sympathizers stop free speech on campus when the "speech" doesn't fit their narrative. I have lost count of the number of times Pro-life organizations have had their tables taken down at universities. One cannot question abortion because according to the left it attacks a woman's right to choose. No open debate allowed. Is this not an infringement of free speech? And if not, why not? And why is this attack on free speech not on the front page of newspapers? On the other side, we have media making up stories to promote a narrative. Remember the Rolling Stone "fake rape" story? The movie "Kill the Messenger," which received excellent reviews, didn't do as well at the box office as expected. A shame. The story of "Kill the Messenger" reminds us of our need and our right to hold journalists to account. This movie should be part of every journalism programme in the USA and Canada. It's a wake-up call from the past. To maintain western culture we must have a strong and strong-willed media that will hold government and institutions accountable and not be bullied by those who prefer to kill the messenger.