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Show A5 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, August 26, 2008 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor Difficult Journalistic Choices Josie Luke Established January 2, 2007 James L. Davis, Publisher & Editor w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w Colleen A. Davis, Co-Publisher, Office & Advertising Manager Josie Luke, Assistant Editor Lyndsay Reid, Advertising Design Charlotte Williams, Advertising Sales Kathy P. Ockey, Staff Journalist Casey Wood, Webmaster Our Vision To be a valued member of the communities we serve and to be trusted as an honest, truthful and reliable source of news. w w w Our Mission To inform, entertain and provide a public forum for the discussion of events impacting the people of the Emery County area and to inform with news and features relevant to those who call the Castle Valley area home w w w Our Principles We will be ethical in all of our efforts to provide information to the public. We will be unbiased in our reporting and will report the facts as we see them and do our best to focus on the good news of the county, its people, history and way of life. We will be strong and active members of the community and assist in any way that we are able. We will strive to provide the best quality product possible to our readers and advertisers...always. We will verify the details of news we are reporting and if a mistake is made on our part we will correct it immediately. We will always listen to suggestions on how to do our job better. Editorial Submission Guidelines The Emery County Review welcomes and invites letters to the editor and guest opinion articles on public policy or current events. We welcome letters of thanks to individuals who have helped make our community a better place to live, work and play. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for space constraints, clarity and errors in fact. Submissions must include author’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be published. Letter’s and opinion articles can be sent to jldavis@theemerycountyreview.com, mailed to The Emery County Review, P.O. Box 487, Orangeville, UT. 84537 or faxed to 435-748-2543. PUBLIC FORUM In Memory of Montell Great artists and poets seem to be more fully appreciated and revered only after their death. I believe this will also be the case of Montell Seely. As future generations look back on his accomplishments, I believe he will be recognized as truly a man of vision. He had a keen love of history and his roots. After his family, the pageant was the love of his life. He was very adamant that it be called the Castle Valley Pageant and not the Montell Seely Pageant. His respect for his ancestry was evidenced when, in the early stages of developing the pageant, he thought it would be appropriate to have a Danish accent for one of the roles. We all gave our best shot at a Danish accent and I was given the part. When Montell learned that the church would only sponsor the pageant every other year, I believe he feared, as I do, that without the continuity of having it every year, interest would wane, animals and equipment may not be as available and the pageant would die altogether. When he learned that a ranking official of the church would be visiting in the area, he found opportunity to approach him and ask if the pageant could be supported in the off years by local supporters. He was told by the official that the church would like the pageant to be performed every year and given approval for local support in the off years. I believe no greater tribute could be given to Montell than to establish a trust or a foundation to allow not only local, but also statewide contributors to support the pageant, which is a unique presentation of history, romance, trials and inspiration in a natural setting for good, clean, educational family enjoyment. - Don Price Oklahoma A picture can say a thousand words, but sometimes, perhaps those words shouldn’t be said. A few weeks ago as I was listening to a program on National Public Radio, I heard the story of a freelance journalist, embedded with a group of Marines in Iraq, who was disembedded as a result of his publishing several photographs of U.S. soldiers killed in a suicide blast. The story has been covered by several media outlets, including NPR and the New York Times, with opinions expressed on both sides of the issue. In the Times article, the photographer, Zoria Miller expressed his frustration, saying what happened was, “absolutely censorship.” He continued, “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.” According to the military it was an issue of security. “Specifically, Mr. Miller provided our enemy with an after-action report on the effectiveness of their attack and on the response procedures of U.S. and Iraqi forces,” said Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a Marine spokesman. Both arguments certainly hold weight depending on a person’s background and opinions. Those in opposition to the war may argue that it is simply a case of censorship by the military or the administration of President George W. Bush. They may say that if the American public were to see more of the type of photographs published by Miller, the public outcry would quickly bring the war to a swift conclusion. On the other side, there are the family members and fellow soldiers of the marines so brutally killed, who may see it as an affront to the memory of the soldiers. The military also must take into consideration the information or power it gives the enemy to be able to see the results of such an attack. In a war where many of the tactics are used to terrorize, such information may in fact aid the enemy. Though I believe that journalists have an obligation to report the news, I wonder if there should be a point when they have gone too far. What purpose does taking pictures of dead soldiers really serve? Every time I hear of another dead U.S. soldier, it makes my heart hurt. Have we as human beings come to a point where we need to see a picture to understand the sacrifices made by those serving our country? The first journalism course I took in college was a class in mass communications. I don’t remember everything I learned, but I can remember a graphic photograph in the text book used to illustrate the point that, as a journalist, you have a responsibility, not just to report whatever you see, but to also take into account the effect it will have on those involved. The Society of Professional Journalism, the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization, gives general guidelines on the subject. The rule they use is “minimize harm.” They suggest journalists should do the following: — Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects. — Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief. — Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance. — Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy. — Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity. — Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes. — Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges. — Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed. I remember specifically going over this, but I am afraid some journalists are more concerned with their determination to push the envelope in an effort to preserve the rights of a “free press,” and in doing so are ignoring their responsibility to minimize harm to those involved. Writing for a community newspaper, and especially one in such a small community, I believe it is even more important to make sure that what I write and the photographs I take are sensitive to the human beings I work with. I know many of the people I interview; in fact, at many times it feels like I’m related to most of them. This proves to make some of the articles I write more difficult, and it also affects what I view as good journalism. I do not believe graphic photographs of dead soldiers should be published in national newspapers. I also believe photographs of severe automobile accidents, or other needless information about traumatic incidents do not belong in community newspapers. Such photographs and information may draw higher sales, but the effect such information has on those involved is not worth it. So, I strive to provide facts, putting myself in the person’s shoes whenever possible, considering people’s feelings, while remembering the obligation I have to report in an objective and fair manner. If I ever make a mistake, I encourage anyone to let me know. And None Dare Call it Treason Patrick J. Buchanan Who is Randy Scheunemann? He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States. But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role. He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man. From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 -- pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili. What were Mikheil’s marching orders to Tbilisi’s man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia. Scheunemann came close to succeeding. Had he done so, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann’s client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy. U.S. backing for his campaign to retrieve his lost provinces is what Saakashvili paid Scheunemann to produce. But why should Americans fight Russians to force 70,000 South Ossetians back into the custody of a regime they detest? Why not let the South Ossetians decide their own future in free elections? Not only is the folly of the Bush interventionist policy on display in the Caucasus, so, too, is its manifest incoherence. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says we have sought for 45 years to stay out of a shooting war with Russia and we are not going to get into one now. President Bush assured us there will be no U.S. military response to the Russian move into Georgia. That is a recognition of, and a bowing to, reality -- namely, that Russia’s control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and occupation of a strip of Georgia cannot be a casus belli for the United States. We may deplore it, but it cannot justify war with Russia. If that be true, and it transparently is, what are McCain, Barack Obama, Bush, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel doing committing the United States and Germany to bringing Georgia into NATO? For that would commit us to war for a cause we have already conceded, by our paralysis, does not justify a war. Not only did Scheunemann’s two-man lobbying firm receive $730,000 since 2001 to get Georgia a NATO war guarantee, he was paid by Romania and Latvia to do the same. And he succeeded. Latvia, a tiny Baltic republic annexed by Joseph Stalin in June 1940 during his pact with Adolf Hitler, was set free at the end of the Cold War. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians had been moved into Latvia by Stalin, and as Riga served as a base of the Baltic Sea fleet, many Russian naval officers retired there. The children and grandchildren of these Russians are Latvian citizens. They are a cause of constant tension with ethnic Letts and of strife with Moscow, which has assumed the role of protector of Russians left behind in the “near abroad” when the Soviet Union broke apart. Thanks to the lobbying of Scheunemann and friends, Latvia has been brought into NATO and given a U.S. war guarantee. If Russia intervenes to halt some nasty ethnic violence in Riga, the United States is committed to come in and drive the Russians out. This is the situation in which the interventionists have placed our country: committed to go to war for countries and causes that do not justify war, against a Russia that is re-emerging as a great power only to find NATO squatting on her doorstep. Scheunemann’s resume as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,” a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war. Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain’s camp. The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear. Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war? Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush? “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ... a free people ought to be constantly awake,” Washington warned in his Farewell Address. Our Founding Father was warning against the Randy Scheunemanns among us, agents hired by foreign powers to deceive Americans into fighting their wars. And none dare call it treason. (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.) |
