Do Information Science and Media Professionals Have a Duty to Provide Evidence-Based Information to a Questioning Public?
The ALA ethical statements provide guidance:
- We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.
- We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.
- We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.[30]
Similarly, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) states that “respect for truth and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist.”[31]
The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) states that:
“the primary purpose of gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgments on the issues of the time.”[32]
ASNE adds that:
“freedom of the press belongs to the people. It must be defended against encroachment or assault from any quarter, public or private. Journalists must be constantly alert to see that the public’s business is conducted in public. They must be vigilant against all who would exploit the press for selfish purposes.”[33]
The IFJ defines press freedom as:
“that freedom from restraint which is essential to enable journalists, editors, publishers and broadcasters to advance the public interest by publishing, broadcasting or circulating facts and opinions without which a democratic electorate cannot make responsible judgments.”[34]
The IFJ “Clause of Conscience” even seeks to protect journalists, by stating that:
“No journalist should be directed by an employer or any person acting on behalf of the employer to commit any act or thing that the journalist believes would breach his or her professional ethics…No journalist can be disciplined in any way for asserting his or her rights to act according [to] their conscience.”[35]
Thus we see that librarians and media professionals have both the responsibility and the ethical support of their associations to seriously question 9/11, especially if that responsibility is the public wish – and the polls indicate that it is.
To recap: A parallel can be drawn between evidence-based medicine, which provides a standard of information for human health, and evidence-based library science and journalism, which could equally provide a standard of information for democratic and political health.
Using the scientific method, EBM ranks various types of evidence according to their freedom from bias. In reporting on controversies relating to the events of September 11, library science and journalism could equally draw on types of evidence that are free from bias.
Whether or not these professionals have a realizable ethical responsibility to provide the best evidence to their clients can only be gauged by determining whether they have access to such evidence.
I turn now to an examination of the available sources of evidence-based knowledge on the events of September 11.
6. Evidence-Based 9/11 Literature Sources
The literature of 9/11 can be divided into US government documents, which support the official account of 9/11, and the body of literature that has emerged from the professional research community through dissatisfaction with this account.
Government Documents Advancing the Official Story of September 11th
A 9/11 investigation was resisted by the White House[36] and only granted under pressure from the surviving families nearly two years after the event. The 9/11 Commission was a low-budget affair (costing a fraction of the Monica Lewinsky investigation) and tightly controlled by a White House insider, Philip Zelikow.[37]
Commissioner Lee Hamilton said the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” Commissioner Timothy Roemer was “extremely frustrated with the false statements” coming from the Pentagon, and former commissioner Max Cleland resigned, calling it a “national scandal.”[38]
Among 115 other omissions, [39] The 9/11 Commission Report failed to mention the sudden straight-down collapse at 5:30 PM of nearby WTC Building 7, an enormous steel-frame skyscraper 47 stories high that was not hit by an airplane.
Thus the Report, which is incomplete, lacks peer review, and has been shunned by its own Commissioners, can hardly be viewed as an evidence-based study.
The other central documents in the official account were prepared over a seven-year period by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in an attempt to explain the strange vertical, nearly free-fall collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7.[40] There was no consideration given to a controlled demolition hypothesis, though the attending firefighters and TV anchors (including CBS anchor Dan Rather and ABC anchor Peter Jennings[41]) suggested the uncanny similarity at the time.
The NIST reports were not peer-reviewed. Sixty days were given for public comment on the first draft, but the comments, and many serious concerns that were raised, were almost entirely ignored in writing the final report.[42]
As the building collapse reports were not peer-reviewed, they cannot be judged as evidence-based.
Independent Scientific Research Opposing the Official Story of September 11th
Perhaps the best evidence challenging the official story has been compiled by Prof. Emeritus Dr. David Ray Griffin, who was mentioned above. Griffin taught theology and the philosophy of religion, with a heavy focus on the relation between religion and science, for 35 years, and has written nine carefully researched and documented books that together represent “the known” in relation to verifiable knowledge about 9/11.
At the present time, a website offering Dr. Griffin’s books, videotaped lectures, and online essays is the best single source of online evidence-based knowledge on 9/11.[43]
It’s about time.
An informative and accurate account for which we are indebted.
I have forwarded this concise and clearly written article to my 300-some Facebook friends, some of whom are journalists, and at least two of whom are librarians. THANK YOU!!
On September 11, 2001 America become the most dangerous place in the world for Americans because of The Patriot Act and other oppressive rules and laws enacted under the guise of protecting Americans from men living in caves in another continent.
Recently, the MIAC report gave the true reasons for these aggressive attacks against Americans and their freedoms. The National Security Strategy also told about a World plan that forces Americans to be the “policemen” of the world, under a world government that seeks to conquer national sovereignty with all countries with a stroke of pens on paper.
I do not believe men in cave did the destruction of 9/11 and the evidence has gathered to support that. Osama Bin Laden denied he did anything to cause that attack on America and he denied knowing anyone else who did it. He has not denied the things he takes credit for causing in the past. It seems things are going according to plan for the NWO. The Democrats took office to pass the tyrannical laws, so the Republicans will recover the majority in the government again. I think this has been the plan all along.
I fell in the South Tower, in a super strange out-of-body experiance on September 6, 2001. And a saw an orange dot, the size of a pinhead. I was falling hard (and my body was thousands of miles away in another city) and, at first I thought it was a volcano. Then when the dot enlongated I thought it was the lake of fire, but when it started coming up and I saw bumps rotating out of the middle, right then I knew it was a mushroom fireball and I was in some kind of tall building. I cannot explain why God let me be in the building AND in the future, but, perhaps, he wanted me to be able to tell others that some kind of hydrogen device, in addition to nano-thermites, and thermates, was used. I have told you all I know, and left out how dramatic and utterly terrifying it was.
I was Googling to find items about how the events of 9/11 are being taught as American history –which led me here, and to the book: “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong — By James W. Loewen
In his chapters about 9/11 and the Iraq war, Loewen notes that textbooks, allegedly by different and distinguished teams of authors, deliver nearly identical, word-for-word accounts. Then he rhetorically wonders what happened to that other shoe dropping: lawsuits over plagiarism. –Hmmmnn.
“Lies My Teacher Told Me” is interesting for another reason. It ignited a wide range of reaction and reviews. You can Google up almost a thousand. Of the 99 that Amazon.com currently displays, and despite this book being bannered as having a controversial chapter about 9/11, only two reader-reviewers touched upon that (per my text search on “911” and “9/11”), and one of those slammed Loewen for his liberal-biased revisionism.
* Given the lethargy of the public (even among those few who still read more than cell phone text gibberish), and given the “3rd rail” nature of taking a contrarian view about 9/11 history –I’m here to tell you what an amazing job the 9/11 Truth Community has done –with such poor prospects. You have my admiration and respect.
And speaking of which: if we end up with any kind of realistic American history in the decades to come, you’ll all be recognized for your social and often professional courage. Thanks for being such precious exceptions.
How dreary will be the mainstream academic and professional hacks who toed the official line (du jour), and now have their names plastered all over it. They’ll wish to have been forgotten.
Craig
I forgot to include my specific “thank you” to Ms. Woodworth for her courage in speaking up, here and in her piece about the recent threat of official actions to undermine the 911 Truth community.
We have agencies like NIST who completed their investigation on the collapses of the 3 WTC buildings, they submitted a “final report” and then are refusing requests for their computer models and other information pertaining to the investigation, under the guise that “it might jeopardize the public safety.” HUH??
Why can a government agency assigned with the task of explaining to the public the reason for these unprecedented collapses refuse to show their work on the matter?
See attached letters from NIST.
http://cryptome.org/nist070709.pdf
http://cryptome.org/wtc-nist-wtc7-no.pdf
Mr Obama release the 85 unseen Pentagon 911 videos that Bush hid because they Incriminate Bush just like the missing 9 minutes of the Nixon tapes incriminate Nixon.
Mr Obama if you release the Pentagon 911 videos before the election the Republicans running that gave America Bush will lose.
The Democrats running will win by landslides.
Mr Obama if you release the Pentagon 911 videos before the election the Republicans running that gave America Bush will lose.
Mr Obama release the 85 unseen Pentagon 911 videos that Bush hid because they Incriminate Bush just like the missing 9 minutes of the Nixon tapes incriminate Nixon.
The Democrats running will win by landslides.
I am so thankful for the work you are doing.I have spread a word also and alot of my friends agree with me. I am speaking from scientific perspective like the physics of destruction and construction of those tree buildings, it really opens eyes. Much love and respect from Estonia!
Assisted me a lot, just what I was looking for : D.
Great work, Elizabeth. Congratulations!
Wishing you joy of the season from the Eastern Shore, MD
I really enjoyed your blog , I found it in Bing. I recently fell upona reallynifty pdf finder type site, it’s a pdf search engine and I think it is very interesting for people who like reading eboks
Superb piece. The media will latch on to any “controversy” (Coke vs Pepsi, Beatles vs Stones, Term vs Whole Life, etc…) unless it has some particular importance, more so if actual examination would go against predetermined conclusions.
Thank you for your excellent piece here, Ms. Woodworth.
And in answer to your subtitle question [Do Information Science and Media Professionals Have a Duty to Provide Evidence-Based Information to a Questioning Public?]
Yes!
Unfortunately, it seems too many of our Info-Sci & Media ‘professionals’ have been effectively co-opted by corporate/profit/power interests.
Is it worth losing your job–even your career–in order to attempt to expose some ‘truth’? And if you lose your job, how do you provide for your family?
We really need to provide & Fund alternative media & investigative reporters. Thanks to FPJ here & others working so hard to get good information out.