Fluff Stories Crowd Out News The Nation Needs

We find ourselves immersed in useless stories about Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul and Georgia's ''runaway bride,'' yet we get little or no information about war and peace. Three stories in particular raise questions about how much we know about compelling national security issues.

In a story broken by the Washington Post, former NFL player Pat Tillman's family has spoken out harshly against the Army, alleging that its investigation into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year was a sham and that the subsequent effort to maintain a cover up has made it difficult for the family to cope with their loss.

According to the Post: ''Soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.'' A nationally televised memorial service honored Tillman on May 3, 2004. By then, the theater commander, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, knew Tillman had been shot by his fellow Rangers. Nonetheless, that information was withheld from the Tillman family for a few more weeks.

The soldier's mother, Mary Tillman, now says the government used her son for weeks after his death, spinning a useful fable to capitalize on Tillman's valor. This was taking place just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was beginning to come into public focus. Mary Tillman said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at an Arizona Cardinals football game shortly before the 2004 presidential election. She viewed this as part of a campaign to usurp her son's name to aggrandize the Bush agenda. Every American with a yellow ribbon car emblem should be horrified by the way the truth about Tillman's death has been misrepresented over the last year.

Official reports bragged about Cpl. Tillman's bravery, just as a year prior they disingenuously advised us about Pvt. Jessica Lynch firing her weapon at the enemy until she ran out of ammunition. Unfortunately, these stories were grossly embellished.

Underreported story two: A Senate committee led by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., accused George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament, of improprieties regarding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. Sen. Coleman subpoenaed Mr. Galloway, apparently assuming Galloway would roll over for his committee the way Democrats in this country usually roll over for Republicans these days.

To everyone's surprise, Galloway roared into Washington and proceeded to make a fool out of the unctuous Sen. Coleman. When Coleman questioned Galloway about allegations that he had been advancing the interests of Saddam Hussein, Galloway responded: ''Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.'' Galloway's Senate testimony was simply bombastic, but if you want to read it in its entirety, you'll have to look it up on the internet. It received scant coverage in the press.

Underreported story three: We also have ''The Downing Street memo,'' which nearly caused Tony Blair to lose his government. In this memorandum, British foreign-policy aide Matthew Rycroft summarized a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and his top security advisers. Rycroft also analyzed a U.S. visit by Richard Dearlove, who then led Britain's intelligence service. The Dearlove visit occurred while President Bush was still promising Americans that no decision had been made to launch a war against Iraq. The memo said that ''the intelligence and facts were being fixed'' by the Bush administration to support its previous determination to invade Iraq. According to the memo, the British attorney general also seriously questioned the legality of the war. U.S. media have given short-shrift to the Downing Street memo, which essentially affirms that Americans were lied to in the fall of 2002 about the decision to invade Iraq.

There is a fourth story, still unwritten. It should examine exactly what has happened to the U.S. media. Many vital news events now receive minimal coverage. This is a shameful development. We should demand more hard news coverage, because we have a right to be well-informed. It is not unpatriotic to print stories unfavorable to the Bush administration.
Donald P. Russo is an attorney in Bethlehem. His e-mail address is [email protected]


Valerie Plame, Sibel Edmonds, Karen Kriatkowski, John Bolton the list of news our corporate press has intentionaly chosen to ignore because it might be 'unfavorable' to the administration just keeps growing. It's shameful.