ABC defends decision not to air terror threat

[quaoar]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3742-2004Oct27.html

Checking for the 'Error' in Terror
ABC News Defends Decision Not To Air Supposed al Qaeda Video

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page C01

It has all the makings of an incendiary story: a chilling pre-election videotape featuring a supposed member of al Qaeda, declaring in English that "blood will run red in the streets of America."

The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can't determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat -- or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can't authenticate the 75-minute videotape.

"We're not quite there to broadcast something that would be quite frightening," investigative reporter Brian Ross said yesterday. "I'd love to have the exclusive, but first we'd like to get it right."

ABC was put in the awkward position of defending its insistence on fully checking out the story after the Drudge Report posted a huge online headline: "ABC News Holds Terror Warning Tape."

[kikiek]

1. It's Karl Rove. No one else would do it.

[Steelangel]

2. because it is... NOT REAL

duh.

[quaoar]

4. yes, but...

You know they are going to end up broadcasting it.

[Steelangel]

6. I hope so

in end, they will realize that they make a grave mistake when it backfires on them.

[wtmusic]

3. It's Rove's Halloween costume

From me, he gets a lump of coal!!!

[merh]

5. 75 minutes of video???

WTF - was the terraist building a bomb on camera, reading the Koran or what?

[Skip Intro]

7. They kick CBS for not doing enough checking, and kick ABC for checking too

much.

I say good on ABC for putting the good of the nation above the urge to be used as a pawn in one of rove's last desperate attempts to stop the inevitable.

Hell yeah - they cried wolf too damn many times, finally!

[sonicx]

8. good thing FOX didn't get it...