Keep your guard up

Last night I was a tv program that reminded me how the media can twist things to present a certain distorted view of things to the viewer.  The BBC reporter interviewing Philip Zimbardo (of the Stanford prison experiment) grabbed hold of Zimbardo's words and was attaching them to false conclusions and trying to mold his words into something completely  different.  The reporter was trying to somehow place blame for the humiliation/torture that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison.  No matter what Zimbardo said the reporter would try to twist his words; So these soldiers shouldn't be accountable for their actions?  So should you be accountable for their actions?  Is it the fault of the military?  As someone who has spent some time studying Zimbardo's work, it is extremely clear to me that he did nothing but present information about how institutions, roles and situations can affect anyone's behavior.  To the average viewer who may not be familiar with Zimbardo's experiments the reporter was certainly making it seem like Zimbardo somehow created a blue-print for the U.S. military to follow if they wanted their soldiers to behave in these 'unacceptable' ways.  He was trying to paint Zimbardo as some sort of evil genius who was in cahoots with the U.S. gov, while trying to create zombies lacking any sort of conscience.  Zimbardo is a scientist; simply trying to find out the truth, and present it to the world.  Take what you see on the news with a barrel of salt; you may be witnessing some major information manipulation.