Linda Foley, president of the National Writers Guild, is under fire for her inflammatory and unsubstantiated charges in a speech last month that the U.S. military had targeted journalists for attack in Iraq. Her defense has been to say she was quoted out of context. But it's right there on video, in context, and it's despicable. Rodger Morrow has the definitive post on this story, and a follow-up as well, so go read it all, but here are Foley's remarks verbatim, followed by part of Rodger's reaction...
"Journalists are not just being targeted verbally or politically. They are also being targeted for real in places like Iraq. And what outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's 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. I think it's just a scandal.""It's not just U.S. journalists either, by the way. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity. This is all part of the culture that it is OK to blame the individual journalists, and it just takes the heat off of these media conglomerates that are part of the problem."
Okay, let's be clear. The deliberate assassination of a journalist is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, so the term "atrocity" isn't hyperbole in this context. Accusing someone, whether an institution or an individual, of war crime is a "horrible allegation." Doing so without adducing any evidence is "irresponsible." So what is being "taken out of context" here? The fact that the remarks were made as "almost an aside" in no way mitigates their force—or Ms. Foley's irresponsibility in making them.
Before the blogosphere, people used to get away with this stuff. Kudos to Rodger for trying to hold Foley and the Guild accountable for this slander.
Posted by dan at June 4, 2005 05:12 PM