Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:38:49 AM
Perfect acronym for MSM's comprehension of all things military
I am not surprised by the Main Scream Media's antipathy toward the American military. By in large, reporters are products of their environment;
indoctrinated educated by anti-military instructors, from Grade School to Graduate School, they carry an anti-military bias into the working world. I'm not surprised, but I am greatly dismayed.
A perfect example of a reporters anti-military bias is a Fox News story that greeted me when I opened my internet home page this morning. The headline screamed "
Ex-Husband: Army Said Pregnant Soldier Found Dead in Hotel Was AWOL". The story concerns the tragic case of an Army
Spc. Megan Lynn Touma, who was discovered dead in a hotel room. The story's second and third paragraphs are completely groundless charges by the Specialist's ex-husband implicating the US Army in the death and in some kind of cover-up.
"She was left in the room for
two days, and the Army said she was AWOL. They didn't even bother to go
check on her in the motel where she stayed. I mean the Army knows that
she stayed in that hotel," El Sayed Touma [the ex-husband] said."
Other than inflaming anti-military (and anti-American) emotion, what is the purpose of this quote? It adds nothing to the story. Any soldier that does not report when so ordered is noted in personnel records as "Absent Without Leave", or AWOL. Including in this report a quote from an ex-husband that implies the Army "left" Spc. Touma for two days is a mendacious lie. Reporting the soldier AWOL is standard procedure; it'd 'dog bites man' portion of this story. Including the ex-husbands quote, however, puts a very different spin on the events.
I'm very sorry that Spc. Touma's family lost a loved one. I'm also very sorry that Fox News has decided to turn the tragedy into an attack against the America's military. This is utterly disgraceful.