Media and integrity

Recently, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, detonated a suicide vest to avoid capture by U.S. Troops. Al-Baghdadi was an ISIS terrorist whose group had achieved popularity by beheading innocent Western hostages. Al-Baghdadi had spread his wave of terror by setting a captured Syrian pilot on fire in a cage, raping women, terrorizing children and crucifying Christians. His terrorist actions had been worldwide news for several years and there could be no mistake that al-Baghdadi was a lethal killer. Yet The Washington Post immediately after his suicide proclaims that al-Baghdadi was "An Austere

Religious Scholar." How can anyone ever believe The Washington Post in the future? Everyone knew he was a sadistic killer who showed no mercy to his captives and The Washington Post comes out with this ridiculous headline. How could The Washington Post portray this vicious killer as some kind of ascetic? The Washington Post tried to come out after the fact and apologize but the damage had already been done.

This type of aggressive, partisan reporting is exactly why millions of readers no longer trust the secular media. The elite media still doesn't get it. They don't realize that people yearn for the truth. Americans want men like Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine, who was an executive and editor who insisted on the moral responsibility of his company to operate in the public interest. Luce had an unbending insistence on journalistic integrity and editorial excellence.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian patriot, came to speak at Harvard University in 1978 and said "the media is the most powerful force in America." If the major secular media don't start focusing on journalistic integrity as Henry Luce insisted upon, they will completely lose the trust of the American people.

Larry O'Neill

Palatine