PressEthic

Today is Patriot Day, as our emboldened President dubbed it four years ago. It is a day to remember the destructive attacks on our country and its people, the heroes born in those terrible moments, and the strength of the human spirit in the face of all adversity.

It is also a time when we should reflect on the last four years. Have we made progress? Have the decisions of our government and the allied governments helped us or hurt us? Is the world a safer place? Are we safe? Specifically, what has the War on Terror accomplished?

The truth is we don’t know. We know thousands of people have died. We know entire communities, and in some ways entire countries, have been annihilated. We know that the War continues and that is about it.

President Bush and his administration spew the same rhetoric everyday and we are left to wonder what is really happening in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s right, Afghanistan, we are still there. It is the country where the War on Terror rages everyday and you can barely find a major news story on it by any of the large market media outlets.

So what does the media do? It continues to ask the Bush Administration for answers, holding the Office of the President accountable for its choices, right? That’s a good thing.

But, in the mean time, I want to know what is actually happening without performing a laborious google search or relying on blatantly biased sources from both the left and the right.

I believe it is time for the media to turn elsewhere for the answers that we so desperately need. Perhaps it is idealistic, but I want journalists to actually do what they are supposed to do: search out truth and present it to the public in an objective, timely, and comprehensive way. I want to find stories like the one by Scott Shane in the NYT that actually tells me what experts think about the War on Terror and if it will keep us safe or not.

I want stories from Iraq and Afghanistan on the front page because I believe it is the responsibility of the media to keep us informed even if the media elites think we are bored of the War on Terror.

It is the media’s responsibility to inform us and I believe it is wrong to keep the War on Terror isolated to the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration might be held accountable for the War on Terror, or it might be applauded. However, we will never know until responsible journalists make every effort to find the truth.