Media coverage undermines trust

I read the excerpt of the AP article The Herald published Saturday titled “Democrats want CIA tape destruction probed.” I had previously read the entire story on the Internet. Included in your coverage were all of the incendiary criticisms of the CIA. Conspicuously missing was the following paragraph:

“At least one of the tapes showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002. Zubaydah, under harsh questioning, told CIA interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, Bush said publicly in 2006. The two men’s confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

As Americans we are faced with managing the balance between effective techniques in interrogation, what we consider to be acceptable from a humanitarian perspective, and what we believe should be disclosed to our elected officials and the public. In this case the interrogations in question were apparently quite effective in the capture of one of the most sought-after terrorists on the planet. One would have thought you would have included that in the portion of the information you saw fit to print.

As Americans we need to be able to understand the entire situation and to trust and believe that what we read is accurate and complete. Your role in that is to provide fair and balanced coverage of the facts and not to provide editorialized news that serves to lead one to what would otherwise seem to be obvious conclusions. In this case you failed to do so and it is situations like this that serve to undermine the trust we may otherwise have in news media coverage.

Herbert Davidson