BLAME IT ON THE MEDIA
(In response to Danny O’Connors’ April 4 column, “Not the scapegoat.”)
While I agree that victimizing Mr. [Terry] Jones is not entirely fair, you fail to address the root of the problem — the media. I am a journalism student and am personally ashamed at the way the media has handled this entire situation.
News outlets that promoted Mr. Jones' publicity stunt are just as complicit in the deaths of those employees as Jones himself for making the book burning public.
I would have thought that journalists had learned their lesson regarding Mr. Jones last year when they created a media storm over his planned burning of the holy book.
The actions of a lone lunatic were made worldwide news by people just like us despite the fact that Mr. Jones’ church has an insignificant number of actual followers.
Holy books are no doubt burned daily, but for some reason the obvious ploy of Mr. Jones was turned into the one of the biggest stories of last fall amid concerns over the Ground Zero mosque. No one hears about random book burnings because they aren't deemed news, with this case acting as an exception for who-knows-why.
The real question that has to be asked is this: If the media had rightly refused to make public Mr. Jones' act, would those people have died?
Even The New York Times, one of the few good sources of journalism left, milked the story. Why was the burning of a collection of papyrus by an obvious media whore made into news that led to all those deaths?
You'll have to excuse me while I go burn a flag AND a bible and become famous.
Alex Ferri
Undergraduate
