Media under attack

Since I write for a living, I’m probably more sensitive to attacks on the media than most. But I’m amazed at the degree to which some people believe the press purposefully distorts, withholds information, and outright lies. For instance, the idiotic rumor that spread across the Internet yesterday that CNN had passed off archival footage of Palestinians celebrating in 1990 as being filmed Tuesday. Of course, it’s truly dopey to believe that. But plenty of people did.
Sure, things get distorted or misinterpreted or reported inaccurately by the media. Happens all the time. But to say it’s part of some sort of conspiracy hatched in a backroom by Walter Isaacson, David Broder, and the ghost of Kay Graham is just silly.
If anyone’s interested, here’s some of what I’ve written on the attack so far: a piece on the response of international students at North Dallas High School, an article on the difficulty of getting back to normal Wednesday, and a piece on how schools are using the attacks as a teaching tool. (I only contributed to that last one, which was written by Dan Barber and Katie Menzer.)