I am starting to get annoyed by the sanctimonious attitude that bloggers have about how the mainstream media (MSM) is not giving more attention to the story of the so-called Oklahoma suicide bomber. This is becoming a situation where bloggers’ active imaginations make them take a given set of facts and draw wild conclusions. I’m glad that the MSM hasn’t jumped on this bandwagon.
For those of you who are coming late to the story, Joel Henry Hinrichs, a 21-year old Oklahoma University engineering student, blew himself up last Saturday, about 100 yards from the school’s football stadium, where 84,000 people were watching a game. It was subsequently reported that Hinrichs tried to purchase ammonium nitrate fertilizer last week, which was one of the ingredients used in the Oklahoma City bombings. There were also reports that Hinrichs attended the same mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui, who was to be the 20th 9/11 hijacker. And that bomb-making materials were found in his room, which he shared with a Pakistani Muslim. For those of you interested the type of noise being made, visit Michelle Malkin‘s site. She’s been all over the story.
But there’s a lot we don’t know and, for what it’s worth, the FBI has (at least publicly) said that it was a lone suicide that was not related to terrorism. Also, Hinrichs, according to this story, wasn’t even a Muslim. But even if he did visit the same mosque as Moussaoui, why can’t that just be a coincidence? The mosque was located in Norman, Oklahoma–where Hinrichs lived.
Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of mysterious details in the Oklahoma story that make it interesting, and I have no problem with blogs giving it attention. But speculation on the blogs has gotten more and more outrageous as the days go by. Blogger Mark Tapscott, who was interviewed by Fox News regarding the story, has a post this morning titled, “OU Stadium, NYC Subway Threat: Were These the First Two Planned Attacks in a Ramadan Offensive?” It concludes:
Think about the impact of successful attacks that killed thousands in Norman and hundreds more in New York. Message: We can get you in your heartland and we can get you in the heart of your biggest city.
How, exactly, do two attacks that have not materialized, that we don’t even know were planned, constitute the opening salvos of a coordinated offensive?
I have trouble holding the MSM in contempt on this issue. The MSM always faces a dilemma in situations like this. If they ignore a story and it becomes legitimate, they look like fools. However, if they pursue a story overzealously, and the story turns out to be nothing, they also look like fools. So they have to make a judgment about whether a certain threshold is met, whereby the story has a good chance of being ligit.
Bloggers don’t face this dilemma. Nobody will hold bloggers accountable if this Oklahoma story turns out to be nothing. On the other hand, if bloggers turn out to be right and the Oklahoma student is, indeed, a terrorist, I’m sure there will be plenty of self-congratulatory rhetoric on the blogoshpere and plenty of screeds about how the MSM blew it again. But let’s not forget that bloggers can publish all sorts of speculation that the MSM cannot. Bloggers can throw as much crap as they want against the wall–and eventually some of it will stick.
I think blogs serve a useful role in keeping the MSM in check and focusing on stories that may be ignored by the MSM. But I also think the so-called “gatekeeper” function that the MSM performs is important. I wouldn’t want to be getting my news on terrorism exclusively from armchair FBI agents. In short, I think the two mediums complement each other well.