In Afghanistan seven people died today after a demonstration by 2,000 Muslims -- angry that a tiny Florida church burned the Quran -- turned into a deadly attack on a U.N. outpost.
USA TODAY carried coverage of that Quran burning. I wrote about it here and Religion News Service interviewed the pastor Terry Jones. Some of you readers objected: Why give this man more publicity? Ignore him and he'll go away like he did after a massive international outcry last September, people said.
But ignoring news events doesn't mean they don't happen. The Dove World Outreach Center, his miniscule congregation in Gainesville, Fla., has a web site with a photo of a burning book on it. The Agence France-Presse reporter who witnessed the burning in March described people taking souvenir pictures. The AFP story swept the international press and how long do you think it took before photos moved on the Internet.
So, I ask again: Who's responsible for the death in in Afghanistan today? The mob fired the guns but who handed them the ammunition? The news media? Or Terry Jones? And if we had not carried the stories about Jones, would this magically have made the event vanish, too?
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