Tell The Truth

The local news outlets are all reporting on a big drug bust that happened up the road in Rolla Missouri. An Illinois man, Husam Bshara, was caught with 150 pounds of cocaine in the cab of the tractor trailer he was driving.

Several times every year, we hear about similar arrests involving large quantities of drugs that were being trafficked along I-44.

This is from the Rolla Daily News.

Although the wholesale value of the seized cocaine is estimated at $1.6 million by the DEA, Kearse said if the drugs were sold by the gram on the street, they could be worth as much as $6.8 million.

Blankenship said the DEA estimates about 50 percent of the money made from the sale of drugs is tied to terrorism funding.

“Fifty percent ends up going to support terrorism,” Blankenship said. “It’s just a very important thing to do everything we can to keep this stuff off the streets.”

Blankenship is the Phelps County Sheriff.

All of the local T.V. and radio media are ending their reports with the phrase, “the DEA estimates about 50 percent of the money made from the sale of drugs is tied to terrorism funding”; every one of them.

I made a mental note after hearing this a few times. Now, I have heard that the DEA is tying drug use to terrorism but, I have not heard any figure like, “50 percent of the money made from the sale of drugs”, being bandied about.

There is no way that half of all drug money goes to terrorists. Even if terrorists produce all of the illegal drugs, which is a silly notion, they would not be getting half the money. There is a mark up on drugs at every step and there are many steps before the cocaine makes it’s way into the little brown bottle in your pocket.

I made it a point to do a little research and I can’t find any DEA estimates about how much money is going towards support for terrorism. The closest thing I can find is that the DEA does estimate that 30-50 percent of Afghanistan’s GNP come from drug related activity.

Mr. Blankenship is in law enforcement and he may be privy to information that I am not. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I will say this though; If the DEA is claiming that, 50 percent of the money made from the sale of drugs is tied to terrorism funding, it is an outright fabrication. There is no way to even come up with an estimate such as that.

Maybe, Blankeship has his facts wrong. Maybe, his premise seems plausible in some way because the perpetrator’s name is Husam Bshara. Maybe, he is actually quoting DEA estimates; who knows.

That is exactly the point, who knows. Whose job is it to find out? The way I see it is, if a journalist is reporting something that is based on hearsay, it is that journalist’s responsibility to check out the truth.

The Rolla paper had it part right because they quoted Blankenship’s DEA claim. But, once they had the quote from him, they should have researched the claim and if they could not back it up, they should have left it out of the story.

The other local media seems to be using the Rolla Daily News as a source and they are leaving out the fact that the quote is coming from Blankenship. They are reporting that the DEA has actually estimated that half of drug money goes to terrorists.

Once again, the media may have access to an actual DEA statement that says this. One that I can’t locate with my resources. Either way, it’s bad journalism because if the DEA makes such a ridiculous claim, a journalist’s reaction should be to see some verification.

All of this may seem like nit-picking but it’s important stuff and here’s why. First, this kind of journalism is rampant, it’s all around you. Most of what you see, hear, and read are stories that are picked up from another news source, sometimes many generations of news sources. If the original reporter does not fact check it’s not going to happen up the ladder.

Second and more important is truth. If we suspect that there is a drug problem or terrorism problem, there is absolutely no way to solve either problem without truthful knowledge of the problem.

You are not going to stop terrorism by scaring someone in to reporting their neighborhod pot dealer. You are not going to stop drug use by using an overblown connection to terrorism as justification.

This little local story is an example of what goes on nationally. You could make the argument that government entities/law enforcement agencies/private interests are able to spin or skew facts and manipulate the media. In the end the journalists are at fault if they allow this when the truth does not make a good story or they are too lazy to pursue it.