Useless Reports

You humans have indeed morphed into strange beings (I really shouldn’t have made you so slippery; I might’ve been able to control your form a little better). You create video cameras, the printing press and the internet and manage to turn all this into one multibillion worldwide organisation known as “The Media”.

Regardless of which country I have placed you in, your media is one of your most powerful tools of communications which I begrudgingly allow in order to provide you with a mouth piece for your social issues.

I really am much too generous with all that I give you

When first thinking of this grand achievement I said, “Siri, remind me to offer my otherwise useless slaves congratulations on this grand achievement, perhaps in the form of a worldwide Saltoblattella Montistabulari plague so they can all gleefully report on its devastating aftermath.”

And then, I stopped… and realised that just as with every other achievement you have managed to stuff this up. You claim your media offers a voice to the oppressed, that you are highlighting global issues, that you are informing people of worthwhile knowledge to fill their otherwise empty brain cavities. But are you really? And be honest now, remember, I can read your mind.

Of course the correct answer is NO.

How in the name of Bala, is reporting about a stolen fibreglass pig that was held for ransom in High Buckholmside, Glashiels utilising this media of yours to its full potential?

How is knowing that Peaches Geldof often dreams of bread going to help feed the 920,000 of you from Somalia who are currently faced with starvation?

You claim that your media has a ‘constructive role to play in society’, but being the all knowing Bala, I see through you façade.

Now, I am not an unreasonable type of God, so I will give you a chance to prove wrong (I know it’s a slightly unfair game as I am never wrong, but humour me for a moment). You have ten seconds to tell me who this is: Sami al-Hajj.

Here, I'll even give you a clue.

1

2

3

4

5

6….Never mind, you don’t know. Sami al-Hajj was one of your television cameramen from Sudan who covered your Afghanistan War in 2001.  Al-Hajj's news crew had covered the human aftermath of American bombing in Afghanistan, and broadcasts gruesome images that come at the cost of warfare.

Now being an all powerful being myself, I know how troublesome it gets when people start knowing the truth rather than believing in the rainbow coloured story about magical unicorns you have created for them, and like me, the Bush administration preferred that world was not made privy to such negative imagery out of fear of losing public support (they were doing a fine job of that on their own, without the extra help).

So, as a result Al-Hajj was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay because the Bush administration claimed that he was linked to Osama bin Laden, and that he'd been involved in transporting weapons and funding terrorist organisations. No evidence was ever produced to support these charges, and Al-Hajj denied them. He was interrogated more than 130 times, force-fed by nasal tube after he stopped eating in protest and all the while maintained his innocence.

Now, I’m not saying he was innocent and I’m not saying that he was guilty (I do not need to tell you everything). What I am saying, is where was the investigation? Where was the moral outrage that this man was being held and brutalised for no apparent reason?  WHERE WAS YOUR MEDIA? No doubt reporting on the important campaign police had begun to apprehend jaywalkers.