Bigots of the U.S. news media

Op/Ed PEN: Diary Entry by John Kusumi

Musings about the media

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Particularly in U.S. newsrooms, why are there those who will immediately turn up their noses, and disconnect from the discourse, when they come upon the words Falun Gong?

Imagine if you will, an editor who is confronted about this. The reply, at the bottom line, is apparently this: "Well, they may exist, but we'll not run their news." To any such editor, I don't mind saying -- "You, sir, are a bigot. Furthermore, this editorial decision reveals a culture of death which is in fact celebrated by the American news media. It sides with evil, and it reinforces my observation that U.S. news has been genocidally correct." That is why my book manuscript is titled, Genocidal Correctness. If published, it will expose the bigotry of the U.S. news media.

Why does it seem apparent -- if we look at news coverage -- that first-class news comes from Tibetans, and second-class news comes from Falun Gong? Why do editors reject Beijing's propaganda about Tibetans, but fall in line with Beijing's calumny and slander for Falun Gong? Why do the American people have a right to know about a crackdown against Tibetans, but seemingly no right to know about a crackdown against Falun Gong? Why should news readers in the public be "kept out of the loop"?

The persecution of Falun Gong appears in reports of the U.S. State Department. If the government knows about it, why keep the public in the dark?

Perhaps I should assert that the U.S. journalism profession is made up of two types of people: defense contractors (Brian Williams, Tim Russert), and wannabe defense contractors (those who wish they were Williams or Russert). Our media have been promulgating one sided "news" for years. The public is highly suspicious of the media, and rightly so. In my eyes, the U.S. lacks a journalism profession with integrity and credibility as such.

In the case of Falun Gong, the defense contractors who run newsrooms with calculated bigotry are "leaving the Jews in the gas chambers." When the Communist Party falls and the "gates of Auschwitz" are opened up, the world will see what was covered up by Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Dan Rather. The world will be shocked by the scale of persecution, suffering, and inhuman treatment that was endured by adherents of Falun Gong.

The world will have to (once again) swear, "Never again." Never again. When those words became famous once before -- after revelation of the Jewish holocaust in Nazi Germany -- apparently, Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather were heedless.

Really, historians will have to revisit the tenure of Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather. The historians will have to pass judgments on their legacies. But I feel that when we again swear "Never again," that it will have a new meaning this time. We should never again have three men who think they are the bottleneck for political information; who think they are the ultimate arbiters of what passes for truth. We should never again leave it up to three men to define our public discourse in this country. In short, we should never again have the tenure of Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather.

Elsewhere, I have described theirs as an era of Orwellian black propaganda. Let's not go back to the Jennings-Brokaw-Rather (JBR) years. The journalists who came after JBR still have not been equal to the task of setting the record straight. They certainly shold move Falun Gong persecution to the fore. America's media ought to evolve a back bone, or else I should continue with articles like this one, to vividly expose the profound depths of genuine evil at the U.S. news media.

Never again. Never again! NEVER AGAIN!!

/s./ JPK

The first Generation X presidential candidate, John Kusumi was the 18-year-old for U.S. President in 1984 (Independent / Practical Idealist). He is the founder and Director Emeritus of the China Support Network, formed with fellow Americans in 1989 to respond to the tragedy of China's Tiananmen Square massacre. He is also a leader of the Freedom First, Olympics Second Coalition -- a combination of many groups that are opposed to Beijing's Olympic Games unless China first is free. He is also a columnist, podcaster, public speaker and advisor to leading Chinese dissidents, with material at Kusumi.com.