AlterNet -- A Media Day In2 Historically, when national and local media respond to a breaking emergency, speculation and hyperbole take over. On Tuesday morning we witnessed, again, how powerful media images can electrify a world instantly; and, how we in the media sometimes use our power irresponsibly.
For hours in the morning, Tom Brokaw and NBC were reporting that the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- along with Hamas, one of the two groups responsible for many of the suicide bombings in Israel -- had claimed responsibility for the attack. That unsubstantiated claim turned out to be based upon one anonymous phone call to Abu Dhabi television, but it lasted for hours, until a DFLP spokesman could call and explicitly disavow it.
That was just the tip of it. Speculation was rampant, on absolutely no evidence, that someone Islamic -- usually Osama bin Laden -- was responsible, but that speculation often broadly invoked "Islam" as responsible -- using every adherant of one of the world's largest religions, with a couple of billion believers, as shorthand for "terrorist." Pat Robertson was on the 700 Club within an hour, blaming Islam itself, and later, on Fox, talking about Satan and Arabs. It was reminiscent of what turned out to be grossly inaccurate reports, in the first few hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, that "Arabs" were behind it. If I were Arab-American, I'd be scared.