The media should engage with "conspiracy theorists"

The media should engage with "conspiracy theorists"
Posted by Yo Zushi - 09 March 2010 11:38

Dismissing the Japanese politician Yukihisa Fujita's concerns over 9/11 gives credence to believers' conviction.

Since 2008, the Japanese Diet member Yukihisa Fujita has been voicing concerns over the US account of the events of 9/11. His much documented conversion to the "truth movement" via dubious internet videos such asLoose Change is a cause for concern, and it is tempting to dismiss him as an irrational fantasist. Yet beneath his recourse to contestable evidence, and his affiliations with sacred cows such as David Ray Griffin (with whom he co-authored Questioning 9/11 in Japan's Parliament), is a critical faculty absent from too much of the political class. Fujita may have deflated his own arguments with "facts" culled from the net, including doubts over whether the Pentagon was struck by a plane at all, but the knee-jerk reactions of the media have been equally counterproductive.

Yesterday's Washington Post insisted:

Mr Fujita's ideas about the attack on the World Trade Center, which he shared with us in a recent interview, are too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/03/fujita-concerns-japan-media


But why? Surely the function of the media is to inform through reasoned debate; such refusals to engage with "bogus" ideas only serves to fuel the believers' conviction. If they are wrong, why not prove it with evidence, instead of trying to force consensus with nothing but bullying language? The Post accuses Fujita of being "fact-averse", and casts those who question the official account as members of the "lunatic fringe". But crucially, it identifies Fujita's views as rooted in the rising tide of anti-US sentiment in Japan. If so, dispelling the myth of American complicity in 9/11 should help ease relations between the two countries.

Agree with him or not, Fujita is an articulate and intelligent politician. His criticisms of Japan's failure to fully investigate US claims for war in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks are sound, and his insistence of a distinction between acts of war and crime is a creditable contribution to the Middle East war debate. That such an influential figure -- the director-general of the Democratic Party's international department, no less -- could succumb to the lure of "truther" polemics shows how inflated the issue has become. The tarring catch-all that is the term "conspiracy theory" is inadequate as a tool for meaningful debate. Less strong-arming, please, from the media, as well as the Loose Change set.