Given that there have been no reminders, it seems that we’re supposed to forget.
Twenty months ago, the entire TV news media, individually and as a whole, reported a sensational, world-changing story: the Arabic-Islamic world suddenly and spectacularly had been overwhelmed by a wave of Western-style democracy.
That’s right; religious, political and social freedom was breaking out all over the Middle East. In Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and, most significantly, Egypt. And soon this revolution would conquer the forces of evil ruling Syria.
For one week, our TVs reported that the bells of freedom were ringing, from Tunis to Cairo.
One small problem: The story was bogus; it was based on nothing more than a notion, almost from the start.
It was obvious after Day 1 of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations in Cairo, when men and women in Western garb disappeared, replaced by women in Muslim garb and by wild-eyed men given to demonstrating their commitment to Allah by slitting their throats — and yours.
Wait a second. What happened to all those pro-democracy demonstrators? Did they just bus in for the day?
If anything had changed about this part of the world, it had changed for the worse. And it still has. The enlightened of that world and the non-radical Muslims of that region are more unwelcome, targeted and endangered than before!
Yet, for an entire week, reports from network “experts” on the scene, recently returned from the region, and from anchors and analysts in US studios claimed that these were the moments when we could all join hands and sway to the beat of international moderation and tolerance.
No one could explain exactly why, after centuries of murderous oppression and allegiance to backwards, that these were the moments that the civilized world had been waiting for, but that was TV’s story, and everyone, on every network, was sticking to it.
Heck, if you didn’t suspect better, you’d have thought that the Muslim Brotherhood was something like the Rotary Club.
Recordings of those newscasts 20 months ago exist. They’d make fascinating viewing. It’s just likely a case that no network TV division is interested in reminding this nation how deadly wrong it was about those nations, still crazy after all these years.
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The sad, transparently dishonest state of local TV newscasts is actually growing worse.
Two Friday afternoons ago, a man was rescued from the tigers’ secured area at the Bronx Zoo. Almost immediately, it became clear that 25-year-old David Villalobos did not accidentally enter or fall in, but had leaped in.
And by Saturday morning, all the local papers reported that story.
Yet, on Ch. 4 News’s 6 pm broadcast, the next day — more than 24 hours after the episode — the station reported the story as a scoop, a fresh, fantastic revelation available only to viewers of WNBC.
The “tease” at the top pointed to, “The man who jumped into the tiger den at the Bronx Zoo.”
Moments later, anchor Gus Rosendale reported this as the lead story: “New, tonight, we’ve learned that this was no accident.”
Consider the pre-planned shamelessness applied to such a report by professional news folks. Yet, this is the kind of “breaking news” now regularly presented in New York.
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The recent revelation that a male aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver writes a pro-Silver blog under the name, “Sophia Walker,” brings to mind a write-in poll The Post many years ago conducted to gauge the popularity among national anchors Peter Jennings (ABC), Tom Brokaw (NBC), Dan Rather (CBS) and Other.
The surprise winner? Other candidate, Forrest Sawyer, then a CBS backup. It was soon learned that Sawyer’s agent stuffed the ballot box.