REPORTING THE NEWS...OR CREATING IT?

A letter purportedly written by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein called on Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim clergy to call for a jihad (holy war) against U.S. occupation, Al Jazeera television reported on Wednesday.

''If the hawza (Shi'ite seminaries) calls for a jihad, this would unify the whole Iraqi people against the occupation,'' said the letter that the Arabic satellite channel said was written by Saddam in answer to questions sent to him.

The authenticity of the handwritten could not be immediately established. Al Jazeera showed footage of the letter without giving details of how it was obtained

I am not a journalist. But I see things happening under the guise of journalism today that give me pause.

Among these things is the willingness of journalists today to serve - wittingly or un - as the shills of evil.

Let me explain.

First, we begin with a premise: The rational world knows that Saddam Hussein was a tyrannical, murderous thug who murdered his way into power in Iraq. That he is gone is a good thing for the people of Iraq.

In this premise I do not require you to believe that current Iraq is necessarily a good thing...only that being rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing.

OK - now. You are the Managing Editor at a news outlet. Someone knocks on the back door and a masked man delivers a package. He says "this is from Saddam Hussein".

Someone opens the package. It is a video tape...or perhaps a letter. The message is by now a familiar one - someone claiming to be Saddam exhorts Iraqis and other Arab "brothers" to rise up in jihad against the Americans.

What do you do? Do you publish it or not?

Is it news? Debatable. It is not as if this message was successfully delivered elsewhere by the purported Saddam. No public speech, no purchased TV time? In fact, nothing whatsoever that would be difficult for someone on the run.

All they did was to deliver the message to you. If you were not a news outlet, you would not have received this message.

Indeed, if the news outlet ceases to exist, so does the man who delivered it, and so does the video tape or letter itself.

In other words, this is only news if the news outlet exists to MAKE it news.

Which isn't the job of news outlets.

But, if you are the decision maker at Al Jazeera television, you publish this as if it were a story.

And you spread to the word that Saddam is calling for a jihad against the Americans.

And you give the entire text, laying out the author's reasoning.

Doubtful that you have verified the source. But you publish it anyway.

So you have to ask yourself...are we a news organization, or have we just become a mouthpiece, indeed the only possible mouthpiece by which Saddam, the tyrannical murderous thug can spread his message to millions of Iraqis and Arabs?

Or, put another way, if I don't publish this thing...Saddam cannot speak to the masses.

You publish it anyway?

Shill.