Why Would Reporters Lie about 9/11 if the Truth is Worth a Pulitzer Prize?

     A 9/11 fact denier named Jonathan Kay recently came up with an age-old counter-conspiracy theory for denying the facts of 9/11: When the facts are against you, keep your opponent’s attention fixed on theories. Here’s how it works:

     Instead of addressing the facts your opponent has presented, insist that he come up with a theory for you to debate. If your opponent fails to come up with a theory and prove it to your satisfaction—of course you should continue to profess yourself unsatisfied—then use that failure to “prove” that his facts are incorrect. Once you’ve found real or imagined weaknesses in your opponent’s theory, you then claim that the weaknesses in his theory, by default, prove your own theory. By that time, innocent bystanders have completely forgotten that all the facts are against you.

     Specifically, Mr. Kay has written something like the following: If the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an abandoned mineshaft in rural Pennsylvania were an inside job, our thoroughly professional and honest corporate media would be clambering for the chance to win a Pulitzer Prize by telling us the truth. That no one in the corporate media has done so, in Kay’s mind, proves that the corporate-owned media’s conspiracy theory is correct.

     Below, I present a simple diagram of how to prove an assertion or find the answer to a question. Then you use reason or agreed-upon premises to determine how or whether those facts support the belief or theory, or answer the question. If they don’t completely answer the question, this is a limitation. You adjust your theory accordingly.

     Nowhere in that graph do you see that you can prove a theory by disproving someone else’s theory. To prove your theory, you must use facts and reason.

This doesn’t mean, though, that Mr. Kay wouldn’t have a point if everything he said were true. In fact, he’s wrong on two points:

1. He’s assuming that no reporters for the corporate-owned media observed any anomalies.

2. He’s also assuming that reporters for the corporate-owned media are answerable to no power other than their individual convictions.

     Here’s where the rubber meets the road. There have been numerous instances when corporate-owned reporters expressed doubts, only to backpeddle after learning that their questions were verboten by their corporate bosses.

     Let’s take the alleged crash into the Pentagon. CNN reporter Jamie McIntyre was on the scene. McIntyre was visibly mystified. He claimed that he had inspected the grounds and even the hole and had found no indication that a plane had crashed “anywhere near the Pentagon.” (video)

     In a later broadcast, McIntyre claimed that his inspection had yielded the opposite results. He said he had seen “the wreckage,” and he scoffed at “conspiracy theorists” who questioned whether a plane had crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. He also made excuses for the federal government’s confiscation of the 84 security tapes around the Pentagon. He claimed that the tapes were withheld from the public only because they were evidence in the trial of alleged “20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. McIntyre expressed confidence that the tapes would be released in their “full and unedited form” once the trial was over. (video) The trial ended five years ago, and we’re still waiting.

     Another reporter quoted an eyewitness as saying that he’d seen a “US Air 737” at the Pentagon. The instant the words left the reporter’s lips, his microphone was cut off.

Reporter's mic cut off after saying a "US Air 737" at Pentagon on 9/11.  (video)

     Mike Walter, a reporter for USA Today (another corporate-owned media source) went on camera for CNN and claimed to have seen a commercial airliner crash into the Pentagon. When an independent investigator checked his story and proved that he could not have seen anything from his alleged vantage point, he went on camera for a second time. That time, he was obviously embarrassed to stand before the camera telling a story that no one in his right mind could believe.

     Chew on that one for a moment. Here we have someone doing the exact opposite of what Jonathan Kay says that every reporter would be eager to do. Far from running down a story that might get him a Pulitzer Prize he actually stood there making a fool and a liar of himself in front of millions of people by spinning a yarn that’s more risible than the claim that cookies are baked by elves in hollow trees.  

(First video, confidently lying)

(Later video, uncomfortably lying)

     What about the commercial airliner that allegedly crashed straight down into a ten-foot by twenty-foot abandoned mine shaft in rural Pennsylvania?  The mayor of Shanksville inspected the site and, on local television, announced that there was no airplane there. (video)

    A reporter for Channel 5 News, and another reporter for Fox News (sic) were on the scene. The first reporter said that it’s shocking “how little debris” could be found at the site of the supposed crash—nothing larger than a phone book. The Fox News (sic) reporter said, “[B]asically, there’s nothing there—just a hole in the ground.”  (video)

9 11 Flight 93 crash site no plane

     For comments on the collapse of WTC buildings 1 and 2, we go to the legendary Dan Rather himself. CBS talking head Dan Rather, I hasten to add, was the heir to Walter Cronkite, acclaimed as “the most trusted man in America.”

     Dan Rather said that the collapse of the World Trade Center—including, apparently, WTC building 7—looked like “controlled demolitions.” (video)

     For hours, Dan Rather harped (no, that’s not a play on words) on the probability that an attack of that “sophistication” strongly suggested “the involvement of a state.” He said it at least three times. (video) (video) I haven’t been able to locate the third video, in which a high-level source squelched further talk of that possibility, though I did see the video a few months ago.

     Oh, let’s not forget the report on WTC7, although the 9/11 Commission Report never mentioned it. In case you’ve been living in Plato’s cave for the past ten years, WTC7 was a 47-story building reinforced with over 40 tons of steel specifically designed to withstand collapse. No plane hit WTC7, and the only damage done to it was when a piece of one of the WTC towers broke off 12 feet of parapet.  In spite of all these facts, WTC7 collapsed an nearly free-fall speed.

     BBC had all the proof they needed that 9/11 was an inside job. Instead of spilling the beans in hopes of posthumously receiving a Pulitzer Prize, they had a reporter announce that WTC7 (a.k.a. the Salomon Brothers building) had already collapsed. The problem was, they made this announcement twenty minutes before the collapse occurred. The entire time the reporter talked about the collapse already having occurred, viewers could see WTC7 standing proudly in the background. Five minutes before WTC7 really did collapse, the BBC conveniently lost contact with the reporter. Otherwise, viewers would see the event take place twenty minutes after it had been reported.  (video)

     It isn’t necessary for me to come up with a theory as to why world-famous journalists would choose to tell transparent lies than receive a Pulitzer Prize. The facts speak for themselves.

     I would like to ask a question, though: Would they really receive a Pulitzer Prize; or would they, like dozens of truthful eyewitnesses, receive a tombstone? (video) 

     Or would they prefer to follow the example of Dan Rather in November 1963? When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Dan Rather was just another reporter on the scene in Dallas. Apparently not realizing that the Zapruder film of the assassination would be made public, Rather appeared on television and claimed to have seen on the film that the fatal shot caused JFK’s head to jerk forward. This lie supported the "official" story that Kennedy had been shot from behind. We all now know that Kennedy fell back and to the left, indicating that the fatal bullet had been fired from the grassy knoll. (video)

     Was Dan Rather disgraced as a result of this lie? No, far from it. He went on to New York and rose to the top of his profession. He won seven Peabody awards, several Emmys, and a slew of honorary awards. For a false witness, a successful career like that beats a tombstone any day.

     I had intended for the previous paragraph to be the final paragraph of this article.  Then I ran across the video clip Psychologists Help 9/11 Truth Deniers Accept the Facts.  At first, I thought it was a spoof, but it's not.  It's the real deal, and it's important for people who want to understand the paradigm that causes people to resist the evidence that our government (and, as many of us believe, the Israelis) was involved.

     Please watch it.
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