PressEthic

I was looking through the Times yesterday, September 11th, hoping to find some news on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It’s been four years since the attacks on New York and Washington - I figured if I was going to find some news on bin Laden’s whereabouts it would be today. I was wrong.

What I did find was a lot of op-ed pieces and personal accounts, which are nice to read but don’t answer the question of what the U.S. government is doing over there in far away Afghanistan. Are they even still looking for bin Laden? Is bin Laden still alive?

There is a lot about the government that we, as citizens, will never know – it’s just the way things are. But with the anniversary of 9/11 and the recent London Subway bombings I would expect journalists to do some digging and find out what has been done lately (if anything) to find Osama bin Laden. We have military still in Afghanistan – why is this not news anymore?

Yesterday in the NY Times Magazine section a story by Mary Ann Weaver covers another serious bungle by the Bush administration – and this time dealing with Osama bin Laden. This is the only really informative thing I have been able to find recently concerning a certain terrorist– thank goodness there are journalists out there like Weaver who still believe Osama bin Laden is news.

On Newsday.com Knut Royce writes in his article "Missed Opportunities for Osama":

“Many terrorism experts, including Scheuer and Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department counterterrorism official, contend that the war in Iraq has seriously hampered the hunt for bin Laden because so many special forces and CIA teams have been reassigned to the war. The war's impact on the search for al-Qaida operatives, Johnson said, has been a ‘disaster.’”

I believe this is news. I believe this is important. I am not convinced, however, that president Bush thinks so. I found some Bush quotes on buzzflash.com that are both entertaining and outrageous.

Afghanistan and Osama have been pushed aside by the coverage of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina – and on the one special day of the year where people want to know their government is doing something about the fall of the twin towers besides arguing about what sort of memorial to build. I was both stunned and amazed at the lack of information.