FBI announces American media in US and abroad now targeted by terrorists

Logo of the Society of Professional Journalists

The FBI has announced that Muslim-led terrorist groups have singled out journalists as special targets no matter where they live in the world, not just those who cover the news directly on the ground in the Middle East. As terrorism grows, the radical groups recognize that the media is the first line of communication and defense against misinformation.  But in targeting journalists, what individuals or groups are included in the extremist manifesto?

The Society of Professional Journalists sent information that was disseminated to media organization in the United States that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) members and supporters have called for retaliation against US interests abroad, and to those conveying information regarding those interests by way of media accounts,

The extremist groups are using social media sites as the mechanism for communicating with their members throughout the world, asking those members to join in actions of retaliation against the United States and its interests abroad.

According to the FBI, a posting on an ISIL-dominated forum is entitled "A Message to 2.6 million Muslims in the United States: This is How to Respond to Obama's War on Islam."  It goes on to suggest that media personnel, that include anchors at various radio and television stations, field reporters, and talk show hosts to be the priority targets for execution, in response to the US-led airstrikes on Syria and Iraq.  This post, along with a video of the execution of an American journalist, are the tools used to announce that members of the media are to be hunted down and killed.  The FBI has detailed the information that the ISIL-affiliated group is the one charged with kidnapping journalists and is considered a threat, to the extent that American journalists are being notified of it.

The Society of Professional Journalists is a principal journalist organization, with extensive contact information that serves as a major mouthpiece for interaction with journalists across the United States.  It provides information on resources, meetings, forums, education and other topics.  In some cases, warnings like those regarding terrorist threats specifically regarding journalists are sent through email contacts.

This follows a significant uptick in the killing and brutalization of journalists everywhere.  In Nigeria journalists are caught in the middle of the two sides struggling for power in the West African country.  Boko Haram has particularly cited the need to kill journalists unfavorable to their cause.  Members of the government forces have also threatened, harrassed and detained journalists.

In Afghanistan the press is again the target of terrorism, as it has been reported there that 2014 has been the bloodiest year for journalists. Some of the top journalists who have been covering the news in Afghanistan have been killed.  One of them was Sardar Ahmad, a journalist who had been working with the French news agency at the time he was killed in March 2014.  But it is not just the reporter or media representative included in the terrorist threat.  Members of their families have also suffered at the hands of extremists.

Now, however, as ISIS and other groups sympathetic to their cause of deliberate and graphic torture and killings of random citizens, or media representatives, have indicated they will take their operations to American soil, or areas of known American interests, the threat to the media has widened,   This offers a new dimension of fear to journalists who seek to bring education and information to the public that might save lives.

Page One about NY Times belongs on back pages

[caption id="attachment_6284" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="William Rule's grave"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff - Page One opens to the public in Portland theaters and other cities nationwide, advertising itself as a “riveting” film that opens up the door to the issues and events of the newspaper business, especially the New York Times,  but falls far short of its claims of a serious, exciting film.

It’s tough to ridicule a film when you have been a guest.  The Society of Professional Journalists offered its members an advance showing of the film on Wednesday evening.  Journalists mingled with an assortment of other invitees to watch the movie before the public opening scheduled for tomorrow.

The Laurelhurst Theater was filled with folks who laughed a little, buzzed a bit, while this reviewer only hoped and fretted when the film would end.  The first hour dragged but gave some meat with clips from Wikileaks.  When "potatoes" came,  the dialogue, they came like the kind of cold mush that makes one want to throw the dinner out.  In that proverbial fashion, this reviewer left not long before the film had ended, with leg cramps, headaches and blurry eyes from struggling to keep up with what was mostly rehashed material on television every night.

The New York Times is central to the film about the newspaper business.  The theme is multi-faceted, but revolves around the closure of many newspapers and the worries of those in the business that the whole business might eventually be abandoned in favor of a free-for-all of blogs and social sites.  The drama for the crowd is whether the New York Times will survive while others sink.

The division that exists between the purists who hope to serve the public and the blog-type folks who favor anything anywhere the public wants to go  is played out in the droning conversations that pervade the boring film.  It does, however, speak some truth to what goes on inside those hallowed office cubicles and boardrooms where the big boys make decisions for the public and what constitutes the news.  One sees the male-dominated echelons of power, from the pop-talking youth that made the grade through college and the former addict, older type who covers in a street-smart way the meanderings of the film.

But everyone looks “with it”, if with it means the sagging jeans, the talk that wanders here and there and misses most of the point, as the point of the film is lost in conversation while the viewer wants to get lost somewhere besides watching a boring film.

Page One has no great names to help bring interest to the screen.  Instead it says the public ought to care about what goes on in businesses and boardrooms in the news business every day, especially the New York Times.  The clips of historical moments flash through the film enough to stir some interest, but that interest soon dissolves in banal arguments and water cooler bantering that goes on among the boys.  Perhaps the film is advertising for the New York Times that the public wants to keep in business because of what its status means to the people working there.

Sundance reviewed the film and finds the producer, Andrew Rossi, lost his focus in this film.   Even the New York Times has given a bad review of the film about itself, with reviewer, Michael Kinsley, calling it "a mess."

But my dear viewer, you don’t have to see Page One to appreciate the news.  Find some comics to enjoy or turn to sports instead, as this film is not fun enough to spend two hours finding something that deserves to be on the "back pages" of  the movies and your town movie news as well.