Inside Politics

Guild vs. U.S.

Linda Foley, international president of the Newspaper Guild, has accused the U.S. military of targeting journalists for death “in places like Iraq.”

A similar charge led CNN news chief Eason Jordan to resign his position earlier this year, after backing away from his words. Miss Foley’s accusation also comes as Newsweek admits it erred in publishing a story that said U.S. interrogators at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had defiled the Koran.

“Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or politically,” Miss Foley said Friday in St. Louis. “They are also being targeted for real, in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there is not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.”

Mark E. Hyman, host of the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s “The Point,” said last night on his TV program: “These completely irresponsible remarks speak for themselves. Foley should immediately deliver evidence that supports her horrible allegations, or she should immediately resign as Newspaper Guild president.”

Mr. Hyman added: “The question is whether Newspaper Guild members will hold Foley accountable, or will they give her a free pass in endangering American lives with inflammatory remarks without any proof?”

Biased to the left

“The Newsweek magazine story falsely reporting desecration of the Koran by American military interrogators in Guantanamo, Cuba, where terror suspects are being held, is the fourth major false report printed or aired by a highly respected arm of the Anglo-American journalistic establishment in the past year,” Dick Morris writes in the Hill newspaper.

“Each of those inaccurate stories has roiled the political waters and threatened to inflict colossal damage on either President Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair and on American and British efforts to defeat terrorists and the regime of Saddam Hussein,” Mr. Morris said.

“It is high time that the American people got the point: The organs of establishment journalism are slanted and biased toward the left and disregard the standards of fair and accurate reporting, with impunity, when an election is on the line.”

Circle the wagons

“Some journalists were appalled Tuesday by White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s suggestion that Newsweek ‘help repair the damage that has been done … by talking about the way they got this wrong, and pointing out what the policies and practices of the United States military are when it comes to the handling of the Holy Koran,’ ” the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker writes at www.mediaresearch.org.

“At the briefing, ABC’s Terry Moran demanded: ‘Who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it’s appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the president of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?’

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