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The Lynching of a Lodi Family
In less than a week of recklessness reporting, the Bay Area media has destroyed a humble Pakistani family and three other men. The carnage was unbelievable. In a frenzy race for the ratings, the media descended to Lodi, a small town south of Sacramento, in search of the "terrorist cell" they learned about in a federal criminal complaint.
Everybody took at face value the veracity of an FBI affidavit and the most imaginative headlines started to come out of the editor's brains. The San Francisco Chronicle, northern California biggest paper, went along with the FBI version with astonishing words; quotes and statements: terror cell, training with al-Qaida, how to kill Americans, terrorism inquiry to spread, number of people committed to al-Qaida have been operating in and around Lodi, to carry out his jihadi mission, targets include hospitals and food stores, and could have poisoned the ice cream.
But later, The Lodi Terror Investigation, as the Chronicle put it, could not be sustained by its own merits and started to crumble down to became just a single count of making a false statement and a simple case of immigration violation.
Although the paper was careful in citing every quote and fact, it committed the mistake of falling into the sensationalist reporting. A terrorist cell in our backyard is a very appealing headline for today's American psychic. Just the word terror can sell a lots of things, a word that bring some kind of consensus, and now, a word that has become the media's green light to mud anybody's reputation.
We cannot assert that the desecration and public condemnation of this modest working family was premeditated, nevertheless the social insensitiveness shown by the media is extremely worrisome. Defense comments, neighbor's positive remarks, the human side of the story started to come out, three, four stories later. Pictures of bin-Laden were published next to the Lodi men. What does that tell you? What does a Lodi resident is thinking now of her Pakistani family next door?
What happens if the FBI puts out a press communiqué and the media releases it? Thousands and thousands of people will know about it. But what happens if the charges are unfunded, and some "facts" are later erased as the FBI did? Who will restore the reputation of the innocent people affected? Who will bring back together a divided community? Who will erase the bigotry stamped on Lodi's walls?
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But later, The Lodi Terror Investigation, as the Chronicle put it, could not be sustained by its own merits and started to crumble down to became just a single count of making a false statement and a simple case of immigration violation.
Although the paper was careful in citing every quote and fact, it committed the mistake of falling into the sensationalist reporting. A terrorist cell in our backyard is a very appealing headline for today's American psychic. Just the word terror can sell a lots of things, a word that bring some kind of consensus, and now, a word that has become the media's green light to mud anybody's reputation.
We cannot assert that the desecration and public condemnation of this modest working family was premeditated, nevertheless the social insensitiveness shown by the media is extremely worrisome. Defense comments, neighbor's positive remarks, the human side of the story started to come out, three, four stories later. Pictures of bin-Laden were published next to the Lodi men. What does that tell you? What does a Lodi resident is thinking now of her Pakistani family next door?
What happens if the FBI puts out a press communiqué and the media releases it? Thousands and thousands of people will know about it. But what happens if the charges are unfunded, and some "facts" are later erased as the FBI did? Who will restore the reputation of the innocent people affected? Who will bring back together a divided community? Who will erase the bigotry stamped on Lodi's walls?
Read More
For more information:
http://www.beyondchron.org/default.asp?sou...
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...that the AP and Chronicle are completely bankrupt (aside, unfortunately, from financially)
Lynching? Do you even know what the word means?
Lynching: putting to death by mob action without due process of law. This was a media lynching. The family has faced a modern 21st century media death, by corporate mob action, without due process of law. The FBI released false and misleading information to the media (a so-called "affidavit," which is supposed to be a written statement sworn to be true under oath, but which differed from the affidavit filed in court), which was then reprinted and rebroadcast as sensational headlines by media outlets. The news stories repeated false, incorrect or incomplete information and cast the family in a false light.
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