Blame the Media for ‘Burn a Koran’ Day and its Aftermath

Last September, I pleaded with Terry Jones asking him not to burn the Koran in a pointless demonstration.  It was a useless waste of time, but I had to try.  He did postpone the event for some reason, but this March he decided to light a Koran on fire after all.  It sparked protests in the middle east and now people are asking if Terry Jones is responsible for the violence and deaths that have gone on there.

He’s not.

Burning a book – any book – is dumb.  But I’ll bet he’s not the first person to set that particular book on fire.  So, why was this such a big deal?  Because the media wanted it to be.  Everyone thinks that Terry Jones is a bit crazy, which may be why he didn’t understand how this demonstration would do more harm than good.  But what excuse does our media have?  Are all of the journalists in our country also slightly insane?  (I’m willing to entertain the notion.)  It’s very irresponsible to make this story so prominent when doing so could lead to violence.  Do we really need the story of one nutty preacher burning a book  on the nightly news?  The media gave him his platform, and now the media thinks that the aftermath of ‘Burn a Koran Day’ is his fault.  It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?

So, stop blaming Terry Jones.  Blame the journalists who could have been reporting on real news, but chose to create violence and hatred by telling the story of one crazy man’s demonstration.  (Currently, the same people are trying to convince you that Charlie Sheen’s love life is front page news.  It’s not.)  If we had ignored Jones then no one would have noticed when one angry man set a book on fire in front of a few people.  I recommend we start ignoring the media.