by Brent Baker
National Public Radio's (NPR) Nina Totenberg blithely dismissed any concern that al-Qaeda and/or Osama bin Laden could be using their videos, which the White House asked the networks to stop airing in full as soon as they are released, to send messages to their agents in the United States: “I don't care if he's sending a signal.”
Totenberg's arrogant comment came on Inside Washington, the weekly roundtable show aired by many PBS stations over the weekend and which ran Friday night after the CBS Evening News on Washington, DC's WUSA-TV which produces it.
Totenberg, referring to how National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had called the network news chiefs, argued:
I was very fascinated by the fact that that suggestion from Condoleezza Rice came a day after I read deep in a story, I think in the Washington Post, a blind quote from a network executive saying, “well you know, they haven't asked us not to air it.” I thought this falls in the category of crying wolf. I think there are times when the President will want to have some information not be aired, and this is just foolishness, the idea that he's sending a signal. I don't care if he's sending a signal, it's been all over the entire Arab world. The only people who wouldn't see it would be Americans.
Next, columnist Jack Germond insisted: “The fact is that most elements of the mainstream press are not irresponsible.”
It would seem that Totenberg is not part of that “element.”
Columnist Charles Krauthammer soon pointed out to Totenberg that the videos could be used to send messages to activate sleeper agents to kill Americans as he asked how a cell in the U.S. could see the videos on the Arab satellite network, al-Jazeera?
“I don't think it's that difficult in a computer modern age,” Totenberg shot back.
Indeed, you can get a live feed over the Internet of the Arab network and, FNC's Brit Hume noted a few nights ago, it's even carried on a direct satellite system in the U.S. But both those delivery methods are more difficult to access. Why make it so easy for our enemies by making it impossible for them to avoid hearing or seeing messages whenever they turn on a TV?
And do you think Totenberg would think any differently if al-Jazeera weren't available by any means in the U.S.?
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
