Hiawatha Bray Calls Linda Foley's Bluff

Hiawatha Bray at Choose Honor has become the first member of the Newspaper Guild to publically challenge the Guild union President, Linda Foley, concerning recent comments accusing the US deliberately killing journalists.

Foley's comments, during a speech in St. Louis on May 13, were recorded on video (find video here at Jackson's Junction). The key paragraph in her speech has been transcribed as follows:

Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.

Her comments echo those of former CNN News Chief Eason Jordan who resigned last February after his accusations against the US military were challenged. Although Eason refused to allow a video of his comments to be released he did not offer any retraction, either.

Curiously, Foley's comments have received very little publicity in the MSM (the one exception being Thomas Lipscomb at the Chicago Sun-Times including a follow-up article here) although conservative bloggers, including Captain Ed, have been trying to get some traction on the matter. World Net Daily has covered the story as well but, until Hiawatha Bray gave his challenge today, Newspaper Guild members have been eerily silent.