U.S. Press Skeptical about Over-issued Warnings of Terror Attack

U.S. news media are worrying how to deal with the surge in warnings against additional terror attacks George W Bush administration is providing with.

A delicate matter is the situation of the warning. During last week, Bush administration was suspected that it didn’t take proper measures when it became aware of the possibility of Sept. 11 attack. The warning of terror attack is following one after another just from when the situation grew more serious to the fact-finding by Congress. U.S. press is suspecting that `the government is overissuing terror threats` (ABC News) to calm down the stir.

Such stream of alerts may needlessly scare the people. The warnings about terror attack started from New York Times (NYT), which is critical of Bush government. A senior official of U.S. government anonymously told NYT that `al-Qaida targeted an apartment building`. Other news media referred to the article in the online edition of NYT, as they couldn’t confirm the content during weekends.

Residents of some apartment buildings were evacuated, when Vice President Dick Cheney said on Fox TV on the 19th, “another terrorist attack is almost a certainty. ” After Robert Mueller, the FBI director said, “suicide bombing terror will happen in the United States as in Palestine, ” Democrats stopped criticizing Bush administration. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld supported on the 21st by saying, “terrorists would "inevitably" get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and use them. ” However, some newspapers didn’t carry the warning of Secretary Rumsfeld in the front page.

Then, FBI on the 22nd announced more specifically, “ the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge in New York are vulnerable to the terror attack. ”

U.S. press seems to compare U.S. government to the boy cried wolf.

“There are people who say the government is putting this alert out there to put reporters off the path of asking what they knew before 9-11, ” says Jim Murphy, executive producer of CBS’ `Evening News`. Ward Bushee, editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer says, “ our readers want to be informed but not overly alarmed. ”

The White House office of homeland security was not raising the nationwide terrorism alert status currently at yellow.

Notwithstanding the skepticism, U.S. news media cannot avoid reporting the news directly related with the security of the nation who clearly remember the nightmare of Sept.11 attack.

Eun-Taek Hong euntack@donga.com