Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Journalists raise funds for troubled Fort Hood shooter
By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
November 10, 2009
News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.
Journalists across the nation, moved by the plight of a troubled Muslim psychiatrist whose "understandable emotional turmoil" broke out in gunfire last week at Fort Hood, Texas, will hold a major fundraising event in the coming weeks in honor of the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
News coverage of the tragedy sparked reporters and anchors in the mainstream media to "reach out to Hasan in love and brotherhood because his righteous indignation at the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led him to express his outrage in the only avenue open to a non-journalist," according to an unnamed organizer of the upcoming charity event.
"We in the free press naturally see Hasan's actions as a First Amendment issue," the source said. "As a disadvantaged Muslim American, and captive of the U.S. military, Hasan's options for speaking truth to power were quite limited. He did what he could within his means, and now he's being punished for this expression of free speech."
The event will include a bevy of "A-List" news media figures manning the phones to receive contributions toward establishment of a graduate school that will train disenchanted members of the military to solve their problems with a computer keyboard, rather than with a semi-automatic handgun.
In a news release announcing plans for the fundraiser, the Society of Professional Journalist-Celebrities said, "As Major Hasan lies grievously wounded, cut down in the prime of his life by a police officer whose sworn duty is to protect and serve him, we journalists will do what we can to guard future Hasans from the brutality of an oppressive regime."
"We can't help but think how things would have been different if, instead of a handgun, Hasan would have had a press pass and a laptop computer," the group said. "He still could have accomplished his purposes, and he wouldn't be strapped to a gurney, fighting for his life right now. Rather, he could walk right into the White House or Pentagon press rooms and take the fight to the enemy like the rest of us do every day."
Examiner Columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world's leading family-friendly news satire source.
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