Absence Of Malice?

One legal definition of malice is "malice arises when an act which is inherently dangerous to human life is intentionally done so recklessly and wantonly as to manifest a mind utterly without regard for human life and social duty and deliberately bent on mischief."  Paul Newman received a Best Actor nomination for his work in 1981 on Sydney Pollack's Absence Of Malice. The screenplay was co-written by former newspaper editor Kurt Luedtke. The film is a critique of the newspaper business in its potential to essentially convict someone in the eye of the public by reporting damning information and inferring guilt when they may be doing so through such means as a leak from someone they deem knowledgeable enough to be passing on truth. In the case of Michael Gallagher, Newman's character in the film, it wasn't true. Gallagher's life was upended and the newspaper continued with its irresponsible reporting and more people were hurt. It's a very good film and I intend to add it to the favorite movie section of my profile. Twenty people have been killed...so far, some beheaded as a result of the burning of a Koran by a Florida pastor, and also as a result of the intent of malice from these murderers, from that same pastor in Florida, and from portions of the American mainstream media. The instigators of Afghanistan's riots intent was violence and they hope that this is only the beginning of bloody carnage beyond Afghanistan's border. The pastor's intent was malice towards those who do not believe as he does, and the intent of malice on the part of much of the media was through association, towards the Christian religion in America, and Conservative politics aligned with it. Was it news that one small congregation was going to burn a Koran? One can page through any one of our local newspapers today and find more newsworthy items that lose that newsworthiness when applied outside the confines of this tri-state area.  All three actors in this tragedy succeeded in their intent of malice. How many thousands...tens of thousands of Bibles have been confiscated and then burned throughout the years without even notice outside of Christian missions news? How many Christians are martyred or persecuted regularly on this earth? It would be utterly impossible for the media to report even a tiny percentage of the acts of toleration that Christians have had for those who do not even apply the same principles of ethics in their actions. So what do we do now? There will be more blind guides holding up a Bible in a country of over 300 million. I'm not saying that antics such as this be ignored but local media reporting it in the beginning would have been enough. It would also help if not only the media but our government would consider through introspection that they are doing more than defending peaceful Muslims of whom there are many but glorifying Islam, ignoring its abuses where the intent is to set the world, not a book, on fire, and actually encouraging the terrorist mind to conspire for more achievements in their inglorious plan to overwhelm the West. Sally Field, in her character of Megan Carter, at the end of the movie, contritely admitted to being very bad at her job and tried to distance her actions from the essence of her profession. The film gets its title, Absence Of Malice, from the defense the newspaper applied to itself before giving its incorrect report on Michael Gallagher, but it was the presence of irresponsibility that caused the pain. This pastor probably told himself that he was refusing to compromise in the defense of truth but the compromise was in his own judgement and Christian principles. The media has to give a certain amount of leeway in dealing with the Christian church in which the laws of probability alone predict that actions like that in Florida will occur, and we have to give the media a certain amount of leeway in making mistakes for this profession has as many ideologues and careless editors in it as the visible church has confused zealots.